Guest post by Prof. UAM dr hab. Katarzyna Klafkowska-Waśniowska, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland.

Responsibility has become one of the main principles of the European approach in regulating online platform services. The development of a regulatory framework for new media services and balancing the interests of rightholders and service providers has long been at the center of my research.  Therefore, together with Prof. Katja Weckström Lindroos (University of Eastern Finland), Prof. Maria Lilla Montagnani (Bocconi University) and an international team of experts we have started a project focusing on structuring the role of platforms in preserving fundamental values including freedom of expression.

Initial findings and possibilities of developing the concept of responsible users, whose contribution is an essential element of platform environment, were presented during a seminar at CREATe, which I found to be a perfect place to discuss complex platform-user relations, and consult some of the ideas for the project. Continue reading →

CREATe presents the seventh entry in our series of working papers released in 2019: “Know Your Rights: What can you do when your copyright is infringed?” by Elena Cooper (Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, CREATe) and Sheona Burrow (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, CREATe).

Following on from Working Paper 2018/02 (Cooper and Burrow, Photographic Copyright and the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court in Historical Perspective, Legal Studies, March 2019, 143-165), this paper analyses 21 judgments concerning the infringement of photographic copyright, delivered by the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court Small Claims Track (the IPEC SCT) in the first three years of its operation (October 2012-December 2015). The IPEC SCT is part of the High Court of England and Wales, with jurisdiction to hear intellectual property claims worth under £10,000, and the majority of claims commenced during this three year period were brought by freelance professional photographers (or their agents) for the infringement of photographic copyright. The paper addresses the significance of these judgments, which are not publicly available, for photographers contemplating court-action in the IPEC SCT.

The paper was initially published in the Journal of the Royal Photographic Society (which can be found at http://rps.org/new-journal), May 2019.

The full paper can be downloaded here.

CREATe presents the sixth entry in our series of working papers released in 2019: “Empirical Approaches to Intermediary Liability” by Kris Erickson (Associate Professor in Media and Communication, University of Leeds) and Martin Kretschmer (Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Director of CREATe Centre, University of Glasgow).

This paper considers what empirical evidence may contribute to the debates around online intermediary liability. What do we need to know in order to frame the liability of intermediaries and what does the relationship between theory and empirics imply for the wider issue of platform regulation? We evaluate the performance of so-called intermediary liability safe harbours, which have been operating for two decades in multiple jurisdictions. Continue reading →

CREATe, the UK Copyright & Creative Economy Centre at the University of Glasgow, is organising three days of events, public lectures and workshops (the CREATe Symposium 2019) to mark the start of a number of ambitious projects (as well as the continuation of others!) that will occupy us for the next several years. In recognising the achievements of the many researchers who have contributed to CREATe projects it will set the agenda for meeting future challenges that the creative economy will face in an era of platform economy, algorithmic regulation, open science, new legislative proposals, copyright education, and the enduring value of copyright history.

One of the new pillars of CREATe research is the AHRC Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre (PEC) which will provide independent research and authoritative recommendations to aid the development of policies for the UK’s creative industries. CREATe’s role in the centre (led by Profs. Martin Kretschmer and Philip Schlesinger) focuses on the regulation of the platform economy and will explore crucial questions for the creative industries such as their arguable transition towards a data intensive model, the control of data structures in the creative process and the role that traditional cultural intermediaries may continue to play in this context. Complementing this work, CREATe is also partner in another AHRC funded project dedicated to “Improving Deliberation, Improving Copyright“ led by Dr Lee Edwards (PI, LSE) and Dr Giles Moss (Co-I, University of Leeds) which focuses on developing more effective consultation processes for copyright policy issues.

Platform regulation has also been at the centre of the debate on the recently adopted Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. CREATe has played a crucial role in collecting an evidence base that has been instrumental to the improvement of earlier versions of the Directive. During CREATe’s first public lecture of 2019 Catherine Stihler (CEO of the Open Knowledge Foundation and former MEP) will reflect on the making of EU copyright law. Profs. Giorgio Fazio and Rebecca Giblin will offer academic responses to an already intriguing topic.

From historical controversies to contemporary debates the first day of the Symposium will bring together law and non-law researchers to the copyright history roundtable to explore the legal regulation of art, news and markets in the nineteenth century and their continuing relevance to current policy. This research falls within CREATe’s new research on the public sphere and markets including the Carnegie Trust funded project on copyright and freedom of panorama led by Dr Marta Iljadica.

But how to celebrate the UK copyright centre without the British Literary and Artistic Copyright Association? We are thankful to BLACA for co-hosting a lecture at the Hunterian on “Whistler, Faed and Painting Copyright in the Nineteenth Century”. The Whistler painting ‘Portrait of Lady Eden’ will be brought out of store especially for this talk to be shown in public for the first time. As part of this special occasion, Dr Elena Cooper (Leverhulme Early Career Fellow) will connect UK copyright history to two paintings with links to Scotland: ‘Brown and Gold: Portrait of Lady Eden’ by James McNeil Whistler (1834-1903) and ‘Home and the Homeless’ by Thomas Faed (1826-1900).

An ongoing project, and doubtlessly one of the most meaningful contributions of CREATe to evidence-based policy, the Copyright Evidence Wiki is a key to much of CREATe’s future work. To celebrate this success, prior to the (closed) Editorial Board meeting, Associate Prof. Joost Poort will offer a public address on a new empirical study on Global online piracy. In a similar fashion, we will showcase CREATe’s www.copyrightuser.org, the UK’s most visited guidance portal on copyright (led by Bartolomeo Meletti).

From empirical to normative: Open Science can be defined as a model of doing science that relies on the concept of openness throughout its life cycle. This includes different elements such as open access to publications and data (both research- and meta-data), as well as open methodologies, free and open source software and much more. Some of CREATe’s work on Open Science will be presented during the “Information, (research) data and open science” workshop led by Dr Thomas Margoni. In addition, CREATe is working with European partners on a new collaborative project about rethinking copyright law in the context of diversity and the democratization of culture (more information coming soon).

Finally, and of vital importance for an event that looks to the future, one of the most inspiring events of the Symposium is the “emerging researchers workshop” led by Amy Thomas, which will present CREATe’s new generation of PhD candidates and early career researchers via quick-fire introductions of their current work.

Three days of intense cultural, intellectual and social activity to mark the start of the next phase of CREATe’s research programme. We’d love to see you at one or all of the events – the sign up details are in the programme. Join us!

The CREATe team
School of Law
Creative Economies beacon
University of Glasgow

Image credit: Pixabay

Three book reviews by CREATe PhDs have recently been published in recognised journals:

On privacy and data protection issues, Methinee Suwannakit reviews Aurelia Tamò-Larrieux ‘Designing for Privacy and its Legal Framework: Data Protection by Design and Default for the Internet of Things’. Her review praises the book’s “friendly format” which should serve as a useful reference for practitioners and policymakers alike. A pre-print version is available here and the published version is available in International Data Privacy Law.

On cultural heritage, Jiarong Zhang reviews the “meticulous commentary” offered by Enyinna Nwauche’s ‘The Protection of Traditional Cultural Expressions in Africa’. Recommended for researchers investigating TCEs, indigenous property and related rights, a pre-print version is available here and the published version is available in the European Intellectual Property Law Review.

Amy Thomas reviews James Meese’s ‘Authors, Users, and Pirates: Copyright Law and Subjectivity’, which offers a new relational framework of understanding key copyright actors. The review applies Meese’s framework to the recent discussions of the Copyright Directive, and concludes that the book is likely to inspire future research into the author-user-pirate triad. A pre-print version is available here and the published version is available in The Modern Law Review.

A composite version of the book reviews are available as a CREATe Working Paper (2019/8) here.

On 8th-10th October of this year at the University of Glasgow, CREATe will be celebrating the beginning of a variety of ambitious projects funded by the AHRC as part of the Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre, the Leverhulme Trust, and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.

The draft program for the symposium highlights CREATe’s ongoing interdisciplinary approach to copyright law and policy. It ranges from an emerging researchers workshop showcasing the great variety of work undertaken by CREATe doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, to a discussion of the continuing relevance of copyright history to current policy, to a public lecture by Catherine Stihler, CEO of the Open Knowledge Foundation, longstanding former Member of the European Parliament, and joint Rapporteur for the highly contested Article 13 (now Article 17) of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. In between, we will be unveiling a Whistler painting last seen in public in the nineteenth century as well as beta versions of two new copyright resources: Online Media Behaviour (OMeBa) and the Copyright Evidence Portal.

The symposium events are all free to attend and we hope to foster discussion with policy makers, academics and members of the public as we head into this new and exciting phase of CREATe research. Join us!

GSA interior wall decorative detail by Charles Rennie Mackintosh  CC-BY

To view the full Wiki click here or the image above.

This is part of a series of summary posts rounding-up new entries to the Copyright Evidence Wiki (organised thematically). As part of CREATe’s workstream for the AHRC Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, the Wiki catalogues empirical studies on copyright. This month, we summarise new featured studies on: Piracy, Copyright and Libraries, and Fair Remuneration. Continue reading →

Post by Janet Burgess, PhD researcher at CREATe

Photo by Anne-Lise Harding

Just back from Edinburgh and the very informative, and entertaining, Icepops 2019 (or ‘International Copyright-Literacy Event with Playful Opportunities for Practitioners and Scholars’ to give it its full pedigree).  Devised and run by the dynamic duo, Jane Secker and Chris Morrison from UK Copyright Literacy, with CREATe as one of its sponsors, it aims to promote copyright literacy through fun and imaginative means, and it certainly lived up to its own high standards.  Full details of this year’s programme are available here but included music-related copyright issues, expertly outlined by keynote speaker Dr Simon Anderson from Audio Network (who gave a CREATe Public Lecture in Glasgow in 2017, contributed to the Copyright User resource Going for a Song, and was also instrumental in setting up the Lost in Music resource).

Continue reading →

Institute of Art & Law

Dr Elena Cooper (Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, CREATe) recently presented aspects of her book – Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image (CUP 2018) – to an audience mainly comprising art curators and art gallery registrars at a Study Forum in London organised by the Institute of Art and Law, an internationally recognised society which promotes knowledge and education in all aspects of law relating to art. Dr Cooper’s presentation used examples of the work of two artists which featured in mid-nineteenth century copyright debates – Thomas Faed and Abraham Solomon – as a way into exploring the complex inter-relation between copyright law, aesthetics and the commerce of culture in past times, before discussing the relevance of the past to the way we think about copyright today. Other papers at the Study Forum looked at the legal issues raised by art loans (Emily Gould, Institute of Art and Law) and international law concerning the return of cultural heritage (Alexander Herman, Institute of Art and Law), amongst other topics. More details about the Study Forum can be found here: https://ial.uk.com/events/studyforum-29june19/

For more information on Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image see launch details here and book reviews here.