Copyright: The Future

Introduction date

TBA

Summary

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) consulted (to Feb 2009) on the future direction of copyright, with the aim of ensuring that the copyright system properly supports creativity, promotes investment and jobs, while also inspiring the confidence of businesses and of users.

The framework document identified key areas for discussion, which include:

• Access to works: ensuring that the current system is not overly complex;
• Incentivising investment and creativity: ensuring the current copyright system provides the right incentives to sustain investment and support creativity;
• Recognising creative input: achieving the right balance between commercial certainty and the rights of creators and creative artist; and
• Authenticating works: addressing issues related to authentication and seeing whether there is a case for differentiation between the rights of creative artists and other rights holders.

The IPO launched (in May 2009) a micro website which brings together all of the evidence that it has collected since the copyright strategy was launched in Dec 2008, and outlines some of the key emerging issues which will be the focus of further work over the next few months.