Flew to Frankfurt last night. Prior to the opening of the Book Fair on Wednesday there are a number of meetings, conferences, arrangements to be fixed. I'll report later in the week.
Meanwhile on the plane I spent time reading the British Library's IP Manifesto. Here is a summary of the main recommendations:
* Existing limitations and exceptions to copyright law should be extended to encompass unambiguously the digital environment
* Licenses providing access to digital material should not undermine longstanding limitations and exceptions such as fair dealing
* The right to copy material for preservation purposes. a core duty of all national libraries, should be extended to all copyrightable works
* The copyright term for sound recordings should not be extended without empirical evidence of the benefits and due consideration of the needs of society as a whole
* The US model for dealing with 'orphan works' should be considered for the UK
* The length of copyright term for unpublished works should be brought into line with other terms (ie: life plus 70 years).
Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive, went on to say:
"The World Intellectual Property Organisation, the body that frames intellectual property law internationally, is clear that limitations and exceptions such as fair dealing and library privilege are as relevant tothe digital environment as they are to the its analogue equivalent. However, out of thirty licensing agreements recently offered to the Library for use of digital material, twenty-eight were found to be more restrictive than the rights existing under current copyright law... Our concern is that, if unchecked, this trend will drastically reduce public access, thus significantly undermining the strength and vitality of our creative and educational sectors - with predictable consequences for UK plc."
I am a member of the Strategy Advisory group of the British Library and so I guess a bit conflicted but my suspicion is that the outcome of this debate will have significant repercussions for the publishing community as well as for libraries. The heart of the matter is the tension between the rights of the content user as a member of society versus the rights of the content creator. Difficult stuff but vital to get it right.