Thank you for all your comments and the interest that our survey has generated. We have read through the comments that have been posted and hope that the points below address the main issues raised by those who have taken the time to add comments to our blog.
Author Archive for Michelle Pauli
The Business, Innovation and Skills Committee has held its final evidence session on the Hargreaves Review on the 15 November with Baroness Wilcox, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The evidence session outlining the benefit of a practical presentation on how the Digital Copyright Exchange is to work is available at the bottom of this helpful summary by Coadec. As this was a short inquiry, the BIS Com will publish a short report.
The final consultation on implementing the Hargreaves Review is most likely to be published in mid-December, which is very much welcomed by the SCA. The consultation will have a three months response time, with a deadline expected to be in mid March. It is expected that this will ask for more evidence and suggestions on how to implement the new exceptions into law.
More recently, the IPO and the Ministry of Justice have announced the implementation of a small claims track to the Patents County Court (soon to be renamed the IP County Court). This recommendation was first made by the Jackson Review, and re-affirmed by Hargreaves. It is excepted that following a final consultation on the details the small claims track will be implemented early next year. The background is that IP disputes currently can only be dealt with through “multi-track”, according to the Civil Procedure Rules. Multi-track is most appropriate for commercial disputes with a value of over 25k. The small claims track will be designed to deal with IP disputes of a value up to k5. The idea is that it will provide small and medium sized businesses, as well as individual copyright owners, such as photographers, with better and affordable access to justice. See http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/hargreaves.htm
And, last but not least, the IPO has announced the appointment of Richard Hooper to lead Digital Copyright Exchange feasibility study. The Digital Copyright Exchange being one of the more high profile recommendations of Hargreaves. This study will be undertaken over the coming 6 months, Richard Hooper saying:
“I want to talk to people across and outside the sector to find out how they see the licensing challenges facing them. As part of that process, I’ll be looking to meet the key players and to provide opportunities for all those interested to air their views. We will then be able to forge some common understanding so that I can look to produce appropriate industry-led solutions which respond to the spirit of Hargreaves’ vision.”
For more info see http://www.ipo.gov.uk/about/press/press-release/press-release-2011/press-release-20111122.htm
This is your opportunity to make your voice heard at Westminster and Brussels. In 2009 the Strategic Content Alliance (SCA) and the Collections Trust (CT) published one of the few empirical pieces of evidence – In From the Cold – on the scale and impact of orphan works (works for which the rights holders are unknown or cannot be traced) on galleries, libraries, archives and libraries specifically and other organisations more broadly. Orphan works represent a significant barrier to education, research and innovation. Their management requires disproportionate amounts of public funds at a time of austerity, and the significant difficulties of tracing rights holders results in a potential black hole of 20th and 21st century digital content.
We need your help in building the evidence base to support you to deliver digital content more efficiently and effectively, so we are asking you to complete this short survey: http://1686881.polldaddy.com/s/orphan-works-survey.
We know what a chore survey completion can be, but we think it is important to provide policymakers with empirical evidence on which to base decisions rather than lobbynomics. The survey will only take a few minutes and as a thank you we will enter your name to the prize draw – giving you a chance to win a new Kindle! The closing date for the survey is Friday 16 December 2011, names will be entered into a prize draw and winners will be notified by email. We will publish the results of the survey in January 2012.
Some background:
In 2011, the SCA and CT have been joined by LIBER, Museums Galleries Scotland, Scottish Library and Information Council, Research Libraries UK (RLUK) and SCONUL in an attempt to gauge the changes, through this online survey, that have occurred since the original report was published. The results will be shared with UK IPO, HMG, EC and European Parliament. In the recent Independent Review of IP and Growth, Professor Ian Hargreaves stated that the government “…should begin by legislating to release for use the vast treasure trove of copyright works which are effectively unavailable – “orphan works” – to which access is in practice barred because the copyright holder cannot be traced. This is a move with no economic downside”. Many other countries already have solutions for orphan works. The European Union is also proposing a Directive on Orphan Works.
As part of the BBC Academy and Arts Council England joint Building Digital Capacity programme, the SCA was very pleased to participate in its creative use of archive workshop. It focused on how to share existing archive content with an audience on a digital platform and explored new ways of engaging audiences with archive content.
The seminar, aimed at arts organisations and artists from across England, drew on a mixture of arts sector case studies and discussions about the many opportunities and issues associated with archive content.
Speakers included:
- Roly Keating, Director of Archive Content, BBC
- Andrew Nairne, Executive Director Arts, Arts Council England
- Dr Paul Gerhardt, Digital Archives Associate for Arts Council England, Archives for Creativity
- Professor Sarah Whatley, Professor of Dance, Coventry University
- Cassandra Carias, Senior Associate, Harbottle & Lewis LLP
- Naomi Korn, IP Consultant
- Siobhan Davis, Siobhan Davis Studios
Get a flavour of the day from the videos below, which feature interviews with the SCA’s Sarah Fahmy, Stuart Dempster and Naomi Korn as well as many of the other speakers and participants in the event.
Expert view: creative use of archive:
Seminar highlights:
IP tips for creating digital archives:
This workshop aimed to explore the opportunities for data and text mining and analytics from some of the UK’s leading advocates and practitioners and to highlight emergent policy and practice issues in education, research, technology and pharmaceutical industries. It also provided a forum to review and discuss the opportunities and challenges of data and text mining and analytics from different perspectives in light of the recommendations in the Digital Opportunities: A Review of IP and Growth report by Prof Hargreaves and the positive UK Government response.
Speakers included (names link to their Powerpoint presentations):
- Jeff Lynn - Chief Executive Officer, Seedrs Limited, Chairman, The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec)
- John McNaught – Deputy Director, National Centre for Text Mining, University of Manchester
- Ben White – Head of Intellectual Property, British Library
- Naomi Korn – IP Consultant, JISC
- Philip Ditchfield – Contracts and Licensing Manager, GlaxoSmithKline
JISC-led Strategic Content Alliance and Ithaka S+R release final report on their Case Studies in Sustainability, revealing how different business models fared during the economic downturn
6 October New York, NY and London, UK –Ithaka S+R, with funding from the JISC-led Strategic Content Alliance, released today “Revenue, Recession, Reliance: Revisiting the SCA/Ithaka S+R Case Studies in Sustainability”, a report that reviews the impact of tumultuous times on the business models of 12 digital projects first profiled by Ithaka S+R in 2009.
Some of the projects profiled include the UK’s National Archives’ Licensed Internet Associates programme, which has shown major revenue growth in recent years despite budget cuts felt by the entire institution; Cornell University’s eBird, which has experimented with partnerships to develop new revenue generating offerings for users; and the University of Southampton’s Library Digitisation Unit, which has made strategic choices to better align its mission with that of the university.
Nearly all of the projects profiled live under the umbrella of larger institutions. One of the key findings to emerge is that many of these projects are relying on their host institutions for support to an even greater extent than two years ago. Whether this is a good arrangement and what this means for their future remains to be seen.
“While some project leaders have pursued an aggressive awareness-building strategy within their host institutions as a way of ensuring ongoing support, others have preferred to fly under the radar,” commented co-author and Ithaka S+R Programme Manager, Nancy Maron. “Either way, where host support is a major part of the sustainability plan, aligning project goals with the host’s mission is especially important.”
The report notes that difficult economic times have called for deep across-the-board spending cuts at many organisations, which can deny digital resource projects the capital investment they need just as they are beginning to grow. Many of the projects studied had the intention of contributing revenue to their host, but only some were successful in doing so, and even those were unable to fully support their ongoing costs.
“This research concentrates on organisations coming to terms with the long term liabilities incurred in digital projects and post-grant funding,” stated Stuart Dempster, Director of the JISC-led Strategic Content Alliance. “It’s not just the actions the project teams have taken but the reasoning behind those choices that will help others start to determine which strategies, or parts of them, might serve as models for their own projects.”
The projects that had the most success did not follow one particular business model but rather spent a tremendous time understanding all of their stakeholders – from their users to university administrators and volunteers.
“There is no single path to sustainability,” stated Kevin Guthrie, president of ITHAKA. “Successful projects understand the value they offer to their most important constituents and are able to adjust their approaches to meet new challenges and changing conditions.”
The cases covered include scholar-led initiatives (Electronic Enlightenment, eBird, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London, the National Science Digital Library MSP2: Middle School Math and Science Pathway, the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae), library and museum projects (The National Archives, L’Institut national de l’audiovisuel, the University of Southampton Library Digitisation Unit, V&A Images), and publishing projects (Hindawi, DigiZeitschriften) with a diverse range of revenue models (e.g., subscription-based projects, endowment-funded resources, and open access digital libraries).
These case studies form part of a long term commitment by the Strategic Content Alliance to provide empirically-based evidence freely to education, research and cultural bodies in the development of digital content. This research is ongoing with the development of a new digital entrepreneurship syllabus due for delivery in summer 2012.
Continue reading ‘Revenue, Recession, Reliance: case studies in sustainability’
Ithaka S+R and the Strategic Content Alliance revisit and update sustainability case studies
In 2009, Ithaka S+R published twelve detailed case studies of online digital resources, exploring the strategies project leaders were using to sustain those projects for the long term. All of the case studies have been updated in 2011. Read on to find out more and download the case studies.
Continue reading ‘News: updated sustainability case studies’
Nancy Maron of Ithaka S+R, which has produced a range of reports and resources for the Strategic Content Alliance on the subject of sustainability of digital resources, has created a framework to help project leaders define the steps needed to achieve sustainable outcomes.
Read on for the framework and to download the accompanying Powerpoint presentation.
Continue reading ‘A framework for post-grant sustainability planning’
Last month the Strategic Content Alliance and Ithaka S+R published an influential new report on funding for sustainability.
The executive summary of the report is now available in UK and US versions. Download them here:
Funding For Sustainability Executive Summary (UK, July 2011)
Funding For Sustainability Executive Summary (US, July 2011)
(You can also find out more about the full report and download the full report: Funding for Sustainability: How Funders’ Practices Influence the Future of Digital Resources (June 2011))
The audio-visual archives of the BBC contain a wealth of material gathered since it was founded in the 1920’s but it remains largely inaccessible, held on film or videotape and indexed to serve the needs of programme-makers within the BBC.
Chronicle is a new project that explores how material from the BBC’s extensive archive of news coverage of Northern Ireland can be made available for use in further and higher education, combining digitised film and video with tools which can be used to search and tag coverage to be used in research or teaching.
Delivered through a partnership between the JISC-funded Strategic Content Alliance, the British Universities Film & Video Council (BUFVC) and the BBC, Chronicle is one of several initiatives from the Archive Development group at the BBC. Its goal is to explore ways in which researchers and teachers can be given access to material from the archive while in return delivering public value back in the form of improved data and information about its own collections for the BBC.
Chronicle will provide Authenticated Users with access to digitised copies of selected news material covering Northern Ireland and The Troubles, along with web-based tools allowing it to be searched, viewed and annotated.