CREATe Copyright and Innovation Network (CIN) – Autumn 2017 Events

(C1) CREATe Wiki Board 

Venue: CREATe Hub Room 404, 10 The Square, University of Glasgow
Date: 10 November 2017
Time: Closed meeting 1100-1230, Public Q&A 1230-1300
Participants to include Kris Erickson, Heather Ford, Rebecca Giblin, Paul Heald, Martin Kretschmer, Thomas Margoni, Fred Saunderson, Ruth Towse, Amy Thomas

The first meeting of the Copyright Evidence Wiki Editorial Board followed a ‘town hall’ format, enabling deliberation about the aims, objectives and content of the Wiki. Agenda items for discussion included: terms of reference for the Board, solicitation of new contributions to the wiki, mechanisms for ensuring transparency and independence of processes, and strategies to raise policymaking awareness of the Wiki and its contents.

The Copyright Evidence Wiki was initiated in 2015 by CREATe at the University of Glasgow and uses the open source MediaWiki platform. The purpose of the Wiki is to categorise existing empirical studies on copyright to inform public debate and policy based on objective evidence. The evidence base, currently consisting of 583 studies, is catalogued by country, industry and research method, offering the ability to compare approaches. The platform supports an open API which permits text and data mining of its contents, as well as network visualisation of linkages between studies.

See a review of the event here.

(C2) Workshop: Copyright Education and Educating Users / Legal and business model constraints on the transformative value of heritage collections

Venue: Kelvin Hall Lecture Theatre, 1445 Argyle St, Glasgow
Date: 10 November 2017
Time: 1400-1615
Keynote: Lorna Hughes
Speakers & Panelists: Martin Kretschmer (Chair), Lorna Hughes, Johanna Green, Bartolomeo Meletti, Fred Saunderson (NLS), Kerry Patterson and Victoria Stobo (CREATe University of Glasgow)

How can the collections of libraries, archives, and museums be unlocked to create value across the creative industries, and inspire new innovations in digital research and development? How can the primary sources of our heritage be made accessible and usable and re-usable for creativity and enjoyment by the broadest demographics?

Memory institutions play a major role in the creative economy, however, digital innovation in these organisations is frequently driven by access, rather than innovation, use, and re-use. Partnerships between memory organisations and HEIs are frequently driven by specific research questions and configured as rather limited ‘digital humanities’ activities, representing analogue knowledge as digital surrogates, rather than broader consideration of the role of information in shaping knowledge and creativity more broadly. We need to address these issues, establishing a creative exchange between the sectors that draws on digital innovation and re-imagines our engagement with heritage as a creative process that unlocks its value for all communities.

In this workshop we considered some of the problematic issues that underpin many of these general exceptions to copyright. For example: What constitutes ‘non-commercial’ use? How does the new exception for quotation differ from the long-standing exception for criticism and review? When has a work been ‘made available’ to the public? When is it reasonable to assume that an author has died more than 70 years ago or more? Which exceptions will always be available to users, regardless of the terms and conditions of any contract?

In addition, the workshop provided an opportunity to become familiar with two innovative digital resources – Copyright User and the Copyright Cortex – that can help cultural heritage practitioners better understand copyright, as well as helping you to help others understand how and when copyright enables creative use without the need for clearing rights.

For booking details, event information and speakers bios: see here

See a review of the event here.

(Photo: Susanne Nilsson, CC BY-NC 2.0)

(D) CREATe Public Lecture: Taking seriously the author’s interest in copyright

Venue: Humanities Lecture Theatre, Main Building, University of Glasgow
Date: 15 November 2017
Time: 1730-1900
Speaker: Rebecca Giblin (Monash University, Melbourne) @rgibli
Chair: Martin Kretschmer (CREATe, University of Glasgow)

Copyright is fundamentally a system of incentives and rewards. It is intended to incentivise initial production and continued investment in works in order to achieve the broader benefits that result from widespread dissemination of knowledge and culture. Beyond that, it is meant to reward authors for their contributions of personality and labour. But current approaches do a poor job of achieving either of these aims. Copyright’s incentive component is supposed to promote works’ continued availability, but rights are awarded in full, upfront, regardless of whether those investments are actually made – and very often they are not. The rewards component arises from creators’ moral claims, but the nature of creative labour markets means it very often ends up in the pockets of investors instead. Thus the ‘lump sum’ approach leads to enormous loss of cultural value – while still failing to get authors paid.

In this public lecture, Giblin explored how taking authors’ interests in copyright seriously could provide the key not only to (finally) improving their remuneration outcomes, but simultaneously free up neglected rights for fresh exploitation, support the emergence of new distribution models and reduce oligopoly power. She introduced a planned program of empirical research aimed at better understanding just what is lost under current approaches – and what we have to gain by navigating the gaps and flexibilities in the international treaty framework to come up with a system that will better achieve its aims.

See a report of the lecture here.