Copyright vs. Creativity – how to strike the right balance?

Nick | 19 Mar 2009, 15:15

Following the recent celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the World Wide Web, subsequent reflection on how the internet has completely revolutionised our lives throws an interesting light on the issue of open access to information. This fundamentally enabled the internet to become what it is today and without it, according to an article in the Guardian, Wikipedia may never have seen the light of day.

In a lecture given by Jamie Boyle, author of The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind at Cambridge University last week, he argues that the internet has democratised the dissemination of and access to information on an unprecedented scale. He posits that whilst there is a need to maintain free access to culture and knowledge, how this is actually achieved needs to change if we are to continue to incentivise rather than stifle creativity.

Richard Smith at the Guardian writes:

“In 1976 law set US copyright at 28 years, after which copyright holders had to renew it. Around 85% didn’t renew because the “cultural object” no longer had commercial value.  These “cultural objects” – books, poems, films, music, images – now belonged to the world, and libraries could reproduce them for everybody for free.

“Copyright holders can, of course, waive copyright, but the problem for libraries is, first, the expense of tracking down copyright holders (85% of whom, we know, would probably give up copyright); and, second, many of the holders simply cannot be found.

“The result may be that libraries – which Boyle declared as “radical institutions” that have for centuries made cultural objects available to all human beings – will become mausoleums, full only of objects. They will not be able to digitise and distribute free to everybody everywhere the cultural objects of most of the 20th century, the century that formed our world”.

The solution put forward by Boyle is that a balance is required between the right for content owners to reap commercial benefits from their assets and a vision of global, free access for all. As part of this solution, global copyright laws need to be harmonised and re-thought to encourage rather than stifle the kind of foresight that created the internet as we know it and pave the way for the next wave of innovation. The issue of protecting the IP of content owners whilst delivering its benefits to the wider public is an integral part of c&binet’s agenda for supporting the creative economy.

Tim Berners Lee recently observed: “The Web is not all done, it’s just the tip of the iceberg… I’m convinced that the new changes are going to rock the world even more”.

To listen to a podcast of the lecture, click here.