This year’s CILIP/Naomi Korn Associates Copyright Conference will take place in May, and bookings are open now at Copyright Conference 2023. Here, Naomi Korn looks at why this is a must-attend event for anyone looking to keep their understanding of copyright current. We also hear from keynote speaker Dr Smita Kheria, Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law, Edinburgh Law School.

COPYRIGHT is underpinned by important balances which attempt to address the complex and nuanced relationship between creators’ exclusive rights and specific copying activities which are deemed to be “fair” to rights holders and such, support certain public interest copying activities.

Copyright law and practice is therefore essential knowledge for librarians, archivists and information professionals who are often at the coal face of brokering relationships between creators, rights holders and content consumers. It is particularly vital that librarians and information professionals understand how these issues correlate with new fast-moving developments in AI and digital interconnectivity. This includes hybrid working and learning post-Covid and the likely provision of access to content to users across different platforms of delivery.

But despite a global user base, in 2023, the shadow of Brexit looms dark across copyright legislation in the UK, as the UK moves ever further away from EU law and opportunities provided by legislation originating from the EU, have either been lost or removed from the UK’s copyright framework. The cumulative impact of these developments have accentuated the need to become “copyright aware” and as such, the development of confidence and skills in identifying and applying sometimes complex concepts into day-to-work.

However, at the same time, because any changes to the legislation which are beneficial to users are often long in the making and slow to transpose into the UK’s legislative framework, copyright laws are frequently out of pace with the rapidly changing digital spaces in which librarians and information professionals operate. Subsequently,how copyright law operates in practice, the challenges these present to our sector and how we might navigate these challenges, is particularly important to discuss.

The CILIP Copyright Conference, chaired by myself, provides a unique and important platform for librarians and information professionals to collectively discuss these issues, through presentations from some of most authoritative copyright specialists and leaders in the sector. It is also an opportunity to hear from new voices, offering different perspectives and opinions.

Last year, the CILIP Copyright Conference recognised Professor Charles Oppenheim for his outstanding contribution to copyright. For the second year, the CILIP Copy right Conference will announce the Copyright Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by Naomi Korn Associates. This is one of the sector’s most important copyright honours, and this year will be awarded to an individual who has excelled in supporting librarians and information professionals in the UK and internationally. Attendance at the CILIP Copyright Conference is an ideal and unique opportunity for all librarians, archivists and information professionals to update their knowledge and professional practice in this crucial area. Additionally, it will appeal to those who want to update their general copyright, licensing and publishing knowledge.

 

The range of topics include:

Creator’s rights;

Government Copyright Policy following Brexit;

Orphan works and the potential of international solutions to the UK;

Text and Data Mining Update;

Copyright Licensing Agency update;

The use of the Copyright Exceptions internationally.

The confirmed speakers include:

Opening Keynote: Dr Smita Kheria, Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law, Edinburgh Law School;

Margaret Haig, Head of Copyright Operations, Intellectual Property Office;

Ben White, Researcher, Centre of Intellectual Property Policy & Management, Bournemouth University;

Matt Lambert, Head of Copyright, Policy & Assurance;

Naomi Korn, PhD Researcher, University of Edinburgh and CEO, Naomi Korn Associates;

Debbie McDonnell, IP Manager, British Council;

James Bennett, Head of Rights and Licensing, Copyright Licensing Agency.

Dr Smita Kheria: Close Encounters of the Copyright Kind

Dr Smita Kheria, Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law, Edinburgh Law School, will be one of the speakers at this year’s CILIP Copyright Conference. Here she talks to Rob Green about her research and the impact of copyright law on creative practices.

The real world impact of copyright law can be difficult to grasp for non-experts, but for creative professionals it is increasingly important to understand how rights issues can have an impact.

Dr Smita Kheria, lecturer and Director (IP) of the Scottish Research Centre for IP and Technology Law, describes her research as “how IP law is understood, misunderstood, used, abused, valued, feared, resisted, or ignored in everyday experiences”. She adds: “A particular area of focus is the interaction between copyright law, everyday creative practices, contracts, and business models, in a range of evolving social, technological, economic, and artistic contexts. I am currently leading a UKRI funded project examining the impact of streaming services on musicians. Past projects involved empirical examinations of how copyright intersects with the everyday lives and practices of a range of creators (professional writers, illustrators, visual artists, musicians, and performers, as well as arts and humanities researchers and their creative collaborators, and online creative communities), and how creators’ organisations shape copyright policy.”

This work has led to policy discussions and collaboration, helping those working in creative industries to better understand their rights and responsibilities – highlighting Smita’s commitment to real-world impact.

There is a space for information professionals in disseminating that real world understanding and also ensuring practice and policy supports creatives. Smita says: “Copyright law can have an effect on the experience of creative practitioners, and the life of a protected work, from ‘start to finish’ i.e. from creation, dissemination, exploitation, through to downstream uses by others.

“So, creative practitioners’ beliefs and actions (or indeed inactions), at each stage, are based on the information about copyright law that they may have, they believe they have, or possibly lack. Further, although most creative practitioners may never find themselves with a need to bring copyright law-based legal actions, or be subjected to them, the law can be perceived as either a utility, a hindrance, or an irrelevance, and consequently, affect both their practice and actions.

“Information professionals can play an active role in representing creators’ interests regarding copyright in most of these stages – this might involve considering and valuing creators’ perspectives and concerns, as a group separate from other stakeholders (e.g. publishers), when devising practice or policy that affects the storage or dissemination of works; or it might involve addressing knowledge gaps about copyright where they are dealing directly with creators.”

CILIP’s Copyright Conference, delivered in partnership with Naomi Korn Associates, offers an opportunity for information professionals in all sectors to build their knowledge and skills. The conference brings together a number of expert practitioners and researchers, each offering their own perspectives and insights.

Smita explains her involvement, saying: “In my talk, I will discuss how the role and value of copyright is perceived and understood by different categories of creators, and will consider the similarities and differences in perspectives across divergent creative practices, while appraising the influence of underlying power dynamics, shifting business models, and evolving technologies.

“For instance, the economic rights provided under the copyright framework have both an external and an internal aspect in terms of the potential benefit it can provide to the right owner. The external aspect captures the essence of copyright as a ‘negative’ right, that is, the ability to exclude others from the market; i.e. prevent infringers from undertaking uses of a protected work that are exclusively granted to the copyright owner and not exempted through copyright exceptions.

“In contrast, the internal aspect is the ability to exploit the uses of a protected work that are exclusively granted to the copyright owner, through contractual arrangements (e.g. an assignation or license) in return for economic or other gain. I will discuss how creators view the internal and external aspect economic rights and consider the similarities and differences across divergent practices (eg writing contrasted with contemporary art).”

Smita highlights two potential disrupters to the current landscape – the first is legislative in nature, the second is technology driven.

“One major issue is the role that law can play in improving the bargaining position of authors and performers in contractual relationships,” says Smita. “Recent EU reform under the CDSM Directive 2019 acknowledges the weak bargaining position of creative practitioners, and addresses it through various provisions – including a contract adjustment mechanism, a right of revocation where there is a lack of exploitation of the work, and transparency obligations to ensure that authors receive relevant and comprehensive information on the exploitation of their works.

“The UK is neither obliged to, nor intends to, introduce these provisions. However, the issue of legal reform to better protect authors in contractual relationships has arisen in the context of the UK Parliamentary enquiry on the impact of music streaming, including on the income of artists in the industry. The underlying concerns around fair remuneration and contracts are not limited to the music industry and apply to creatives in other industries too.”

The other issue – one that has gained huge media attention in recent months – is the use of Artificial Intelligence (or machine learning) in a creative capacity. Whether that is ChatGPT writing Nick Cave-inspired lyrics, described by the artist himself as a “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human”, or AI paintings – the current world record price for such a piece is £432,000, there are questions to be addressed.

Smita says: “In relation to copyright, issues include the question of protection for works generated by AI powered systems, or works where AI has been used as part of the creative process, as well as the legality of training AI systems with copyright protected materials, without permission, payment, or credit. These questions are very likely to receive scrutiny through courts in different jurisdictionsin the near future.”

Building on her own research, Smita is currently part of the creative process herself as she writes Close Encounters of the Copyright Kind: Locating the law in the everyday lives of creative practitioners.

The book will take an alternative view of the popular discourse around copyright’s impact on the creative, as Smita explains: “We often hear polarising views on the role and legitimacy of copyright in the information/post-digital era: ‘Copyright promotes creativity’, ‘Copyright hinders creativity’. ‘Creative activities cannot be incentivised without copyright’, ‘Creative practices can thrive without copyright’. In the wider public debate, particularly on social media, this sentiment is taken to further extremes: ‘I love copyright’; ‘Copyright is violence and record companies are f****** vultures’.

“As a counter to these coarse contestations, my book asks: does copyright protection actually matter to creators? And what can we learn from creative practitioners’ close encounters with copyright?”

Smita adds: “This book will utilise my extensive original empirical research to present a rich and in-depth analysis of: who copyright law matters to and why, who resists its application and why, how a range of factors shapes meanings, beliefs, and practices, around copyright, and how copyright law, theory, and policy could be recalibrated to serve the interests of creators more effectively. The aim of the book is to equip readers with an empirically grounded understanding of the role, value, and legitimacy of the copyright framework for creative practitioners, in different creative contexts.”