The next workshop of the International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property (ISHTIP) will be held at the University of Technology Sydney 4-6 July 2019. The theme of the workshop is ‘Law and the Visual’ and the call for papers may be found here. Abstracts are welcomed from scholars from any discipline who are researching the history and/or theory of IP. The deadline for abstract submission is 23 November 2018.

CREATe and its researchers have a longstanding affiliation with ISHTIP. CREATe members attend ISHTIP workshops regularly and CREATe itself hosted the workshop in 2016. A number of CREATe members attended the 2018 workshop, at the University of Roma Tre which included participation in a pre-event roundtable on histories of IP as told through a variety of objects.

The newest member of CREATe, Dr Marta Iljadica, who joined the School of Law at Glasgow in August of this year, also has strong connections with ISHTIP. She is a member of ISHTIP’s Governing Board and has previously participated as a discussant and as a presenter which informed work subsequently published in her monograph Copyright Beyond Law: Regulating Creativity in the Graffiti Subculture (Hart Publishing, 2016) as well as other work on social norms, copyright, and freedom of panorama.

The Global Congress is a unique forum that brings together every two years a global community of academics, non-governmental organisations and policy makers for a week long assessment of the state and direction of intellectual property policy. It is the foremost setting for exploring changing policy priorities from a public interest perspective.

Within this evidence-based framework, CREATe was reflecting on our own research agenda. We presented an overview of our work over the last five years (Empirical Approaches to Copyright Research, a panel with Prof. Martin Kretschmer, Dr Thomas Margoni and Bartolomeo Meletti), demonstrated resources (such as CopyrightUser.org and the Copyright Evidence wiki), discussed new research on takedown of online content and text-and-data-mining, and contributed to policy discussions. There was considerable interest whether the controversial provisions of the proposed EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (introducing new obligations on internet platforms) would set a global precedent. CREATe’s academic interventions relating to the Directive are seen as important and influential.

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The School of Law at the University of Glasgow is marking the introduction of the new Common Law Programme with an exciting launch programme on Friday 19 October 2018 from 15:00 – 19:00.

The event starts with a panel session including senior members of the judiciary, practitioners and academics on the tradition and evolution of the common law. Included on the panel is Sir Richard Arnold, who is a member of the CREATe Programme Advisory Council:

• Sir Richard Arnold: https://www.judiciary.uk/publications/mr-justice-arnold/
• Professor David Ormerod: http://www.law.qmul.ac.uk/staff/ormerod.html
• Professor Cally Jordan: https://law.unimelb.edu.au/about/staff/cally-jordan
• Sir William Blair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blair_(judge)
• Professor John Cairns: http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/people/johnwcairns
• Dr Julian Farrand QC
• Panel Chair: Professor Andreas Rahmatian

Lady Hale will give the keynote address at 4.30pm and the event will be followed by a drinks reception.

Register for the event: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/common-law-launch-registration-50533838070 

Following the vote in the EU Parliament on 11 September, our EU Copyright Reform resource has been updated to include:

• A full transcription of the Plenary Discussion on 11 September, available to download
• A comparision table including the original Commission Proposal, a translation of the Proposal, the Agreed Council Position, the Rejected JURI Position, the Agreed Parliamentary Position, Unsuccessful amendments proposed by MEP Marietje Schaake. Documents are available to download
• An updated log of European and International media coverage

Our timeline tracking the legislative process has been kept up to date, and the resource includes a range of policy evidence including academic statements, open letters and video clips of parliamentary speeches.

The 5^th Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest will take place on 24-29 September at the Washington College of Law, American University. It is the main convening of a global network of over 800 researchers, activists, and practitioners who work at the intersection of intellectual property and promotion of the public interest. The core goal is to promote evidence-based policy-making by fostering partnerships between academics and policy advocates from around the world.

CREATe is one of the partners of the Global Congress and a CREATe delegation – consisting of Prof. Martin Kretschmer, Dr Thomas Margoni and Bartolomeo Meletti – will participate in various workshops and panel sessions. The Global Congress will also be the platform for the launch of the last two episodes of The Game is On! series, co-created by Prof. Ronan Deazley (Queen’s University Belfast) and Bartolomeo Meletti.

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European Policy for Intellectual Property (EPIP) is the leading scientific association for the economics and law of Intellectual Property. The EPIP 2018 conference was held in Berlin, 4-7 September 2018, where this statement was drafted.

On Wednesday, 12 September 2018, the European Parliament will vote in plenary session on the heavily lobbied proposed Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market.

On 5 July, a previous plenary vote rejected the report by Axel Voss MEP, the rapporteur for the legal affairs committee JURI. The main concerns related to the effects of Article 11 that introduces a new layer of licensing into the communication of news online, and of Article 13 that introduces new obligations on online platforms that are likely to be met by filtering content uploaded to their services.

Download statement here or read more below.

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The University of Glasgow is delighted to play a central role in the work of the new UK Policy and Evidence Centre which was launched on Friday 7 September 2018. The Centre is an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded consortium set up as part of its Creative Economy Programme.

The Policy and Evidence Centre will address the fact that while the national economic strength of the UK’s creative industries is unquestioned, gaps in the evidence base still exist. Led by global innovation foundation Nesta, with university partners across the UK including Glasgow, the new centre will connect stakeholders within the sector, research communities, and policy makers.  It will develop independent evidence that will inform decision-making across the creative industries and underpin future policy decisions. Professor Andrew Thompson, Executive Chair of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, said:

“Combining world-class arts and humanities researchers with our globally renowned creative industries will underpin growth in this vibrant and rapidly expanding sector within the UK economy.

“These pioneering partnerships between industry and universities are providing a huge vote of confidence for a sector that is vital to the future prosperity of the UK.”

The University’s contribution will build on the work of CREATe, the copyright and creative economy centre (www.create.ac.uk), which has developed a global reputation for its policy work at the interface of law, society and technology.

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