This year marks the exciting 20th annual meeting of the European Policy for Intellectual Property (EPIP) conference. The theme is ‘Turning IP Ambitions into Action: Creating Connections, Collaborations and Communities’. The conference will take place in Antwerp, Belgium from the 10-12 September, hosted by the University of Antwerp Faculty of Law. EPIP has become an important event for interdisciplinary research, spanning all different forms of intellectual property and associated topics (see past CREATe participation at EPIP here and here). As the organisers write, this conference ‘bring[s] together scholars from various disciplines, including the fields of economics, law, management science and political science, as well as stakeholders and policymakers for theoretical, empirical and policy-oriented presentations and discussions on intellectual property (IP) protection, science and innovation.’
While in Antwerp, keep an eye out for these CREATe members who will be presenting research:
Ula Furgal: Remunerating journalists: an appropriate share of the unknown (Session B.5 Thursday 8:30am)
This paper discusses the transfer of value from digital platforms to journalists pursuant to the provisions of the European Union 2019 Copyright Directive and its national implementations. The analysis focuses on the journalists’ entitlement to receive an appropriate share of the revenues press publishers collect from digital platforms for the online use of their content due to a new related right. Assigning creators a share from the related right’s revenues is a novel solution with a potential to create new income streams for journalists. The paper argues that due to the asymmetrical relationship between press publishers and journalists and the lack of transparency of the licensing agreements between publishers and digital platforms, the potential of the journalists’ entitlement will not be realised unless the provision is sufficiently operationalised on the national level. As such, the paper advocates for a clear indication what proportion of the revenue is considered appropriate by the legislators and the introduction of the suitable transparency obligations.
Arthur Ehlinger, Martin Kretschmer, and Amy Thomas: Copyright earnings and labour markets in creative industries: what have we learned from a series of UK surveys since 2006 (Session A.6 Wednesday 16:45)
Since 2006, the researchers have been collecting empirical evidence on the copyright earnings and contracts of creators and the factors shaping creative labour markets. The core of the research are large-scale repeat surveys, using the same questionnaire, adjusted for different sub-sectors, such as authors, performers, journalists, directors and visual artists. In 2023 and 2024, the CREATe centre in collaboration with UK sector organisations surveyed 7,574 individuals representing a population of over 110,000 UK creative workers. This paper will begin to integrate the findings across six sectors, of which two have longitudinal data. In particular, we seek to explain a sharp decline in earnings and trends in gender pay disparities.
The list of surveys and underlying data supporting this paper is available here:
https://www.create.ac.uk/project/dealing-with-creators-project/2024/06/16/creators-hub/
Kristofer Erickson, Bartolomeo Meletti and Aline Iramina: Between a rock and a hard place? Open IP licensing models in the cultural heritage sector
(Note: paper had to be withdrawn due to last-minute health issues)
This paper reports on a study of open IP licensing practices among galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) sector institutions in four jurisdictions: the UK, the EU, the USA and Brazil. The purpose of this study is to advance understanding of how open licensing is being applied by cultural heritage institutions (CHIs) in the context of a challenging funding environment for cultural memory and the arts. We assess the experience of CHIs in light of the established theory on open innovation (Von Hippel & Von Krogh, 2010; Moretti & Biancardi, 2020; Majchrzak et al, 2023). In some ways, the experience of CHIs mirrors and can be guided by the benefits and challenges identified for firms working with open-source software and other freely licensed material (Verwayen et al., 2011; Lazzeretti & Sartori, 2016; Russo-Spenna et al., 2022). These include complementarity, cost savings and network effects. We identify seven themes of importance for CHIs in determining whether to adopt open licensing models: (1) contribution to their public mission; (2) indirect benefits to revenue; (3) cost savings compared to paid approaches; (4) costs of implementing open models; (5) interoperability with other platforms; (6) tracking downstream use; and (7) choosing appropriate licences and tools. Implications for copyright policy and sectoral best practice are discussed.
The full report can be accessed here: https://zenodo.org/records/15691432