SCA Blog

Naomi Korn, the SCA’s IPR Consultant, kicked off the Shaping the Future forum at the British Library on February 19 with a lively overview of the challenges of IP - from content to the law and resources to policies - but also highlighted some of the opportunities it offers.

Read on to find out what she said and to see the presentations from her talk.
I am working with Charles Oppenheim with regard to understanding the issues facing the SCA and find common direction and framework to resolve these issues

We are operating within a culture in which content is king. It has never been more easy to create and access content. We take it for granted but the ways in which we can engage with content are multiple. Everyone is a content creator, user and publisher – they can mix and mash and mesh it up

IPR and licensing is central as every type of content will have at least one layer of rights and possibly multiple rights associated with it and the means of accessing it is through IPR. Copyright protection is automatic on creation and digital copyright is no different from print – just easier to infringe! And consequences can be more problematic…

For all these reasons, copyright is potentially one of the greatest obstacles we face in achieving the aims of the SCA.

The problem: content

There is a range of content among SCA members:
- combination of born digital and digitial surrpogates
- research data
- photographs and artistic works
- broadcasts, footage and film
- journals, books, newspapers, policy documents
- archival material
- sound recordings
- user generated content
- databases
- multimedia

The problem is that the range of content means that a whole range of rights is involved and, along with that, the potential for multiple rights holders – the content is used for multiple purposes and by multiple stakeholders. The user is also likely to increase value to the content so we’re looking at a loop of copyright flow - layers of content can be built on content.

Across the SCA there is a lack of standardisation and harmonisation in how content is treated and used. The lack of harmonisation is to be expected but there is an unknown scale – we can’t quantify at this stage how much of a problem this is.

The problem: the law

The law aims to create a balanced framework but does not do it very well – there are very few exceptions for users and it does not address the issue of orphan works (those works for which the rights holders are unknown or cannot be traced). Ultimately, the law restricts the flow of content.

The Gowers consultation is disappointing with regard to the flow of content and doesn’t help the SCA much. Despite the evidence produced by the Gowers Review, the government is now talking about extending the duration of certain types of copyright and this presents another potential obstacle.

The problem: policies

There is a wide range of SCA sponsor bodies and variable policies across them. Some do not have policies with regard to how IPR is managed and there are also differences in the use of terminology (such as education, non-commercial, not for profit) – no basic benchmarking on what these mean.

There are clearly some gaps with the stakholders and their policies, including different access policies to users, a range of attitudes towards and awareness of IPR among staff. There is also the perception that copyright is an obstacle. It can certainly present obstacles but can also present opportunities.

We have started a mapping exercise and created a map of IPR polices among SCA stakeholders [see slide 8 for map].

The problem: resources

Guidance can be complicated and inappropriate and it can be hard to navigate through the some of the content generated especially in the further and higher education sectors – it can be hard to know what you don’t know.

Staff can be under-informed – again we’re back to the problem of perception – and this is not so much a copyright issue as a problem of staff and their training and turnover.

There are loads of licences out there but which should we be using? Are they fit for purpose?

Risk management is essential – museums are a good example as they can do very little under the law without necessarily incurring risks of copyright infringement. Other organisations face issue of orphan works in digitisation: how do they evaluate the risks? British Library Archival Sound Recording project is a good example of risk management in action as they did an audit and found that had many orphan works of which the economic value was low but the intellectual value high.

BUT alongside the obstacles there are also opportunities

Greater understanding and better management of rights = more ability to provide access - we can do what we want to do if we get our rights in order

Better understanding of risks = more informed decisions – it’s not a finite science but it is possible to make informed decisions

Terminology signposting = more meaning, greater ability to share content and exploit commercial opportunities

Collective voices can be powerful lobbying devices - together we can make a powerful statement, and this is timely in the light of responses to the latest iteration of the Gowers report

Licence management embedded within organisational infrastructure = greater efficiency, informed choice and licences fit for purpose

Controlling IP = greater enablement