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OZeCulture 2005

Managing Intellectual Property in Digital (or digitised) Material held by Cultural and Educational Institutions

Speech given by Robin Wright
Manager, Copyright & Digital Projects Swinburne University of Technology

OzeCulture:getting it online conference
Melbourne, Australia
14 June 2001

Introduction

• I wanted to talk about some of the practical issues in managing intellectual property in digital (or digitised) material within a cultural or educational institution
• Digital technologies are changing the role of cultural and educational institutions
• From places collect physical things and put them away in a big building, to places that provide access to all kinds of information in digital form across networks (both within and outside of their buildings)
• So increasingly these organisations are colliding with the emerging e-commerce markets while undertaking their traditional activities
• In Australia we now have our new 'right of communication to the public', so at least we know where we stand when dealing with digital objects
• Problem is, we now know what we're meant to do, … what we don't know is how we're actually going to do it!

Public Interest v Economic Exploitation

• So cultural organisations are faced with a dilemma
• Traditional role as protector of public access to intellectual heritage challenged by new fragmented markets and a ubiquitous distribution mechanism (Internet)
• During the debate on the Digital Agenda reforms to the Copyright Act, became clear that traditional activities of cultural and educational institutions now seen as infringing upon (if not undermining) potential revenue sources for copyright owners
• So how do we continue to serve our clients AND operate alongside this rapidly developing marketplace?
• How do we continue to ensure public policy outcomes (preserving public access to our cultural and intellectual heritage) without undermining the legitimate economic activities of copyright owners?

PAML Pilot Project

• Wanted to speak briefly about the PAML Pilot Project
• In previous incarnation as Online Manager at Cinemedia, I worked with Vanessa and the Project Manger Helen Simondson on the PAML project
• Idea underlying PAML was to find a new way for a cultural organisation to manage intellectual property AND protect the interests of copyright owners
• Project based around the SWIFT Copyright Management software which Cinemedia had developed
• Is a prototype software system which allowed Cinemedia to manage individual audio-visual works (or parts of those works) under terms defined by the owners of copyright
• Consisted of a complex database of licence terms
• Allows copyright owners to customise the terms under which they're prepared to allow Cinemedia to use the particular item
• Database controls parameters such as:
• How the item can be used
• When it can be used
• Who can use it
• What (if anything) users have to pay
• Who any royalties go to
• Allowed Cinemedia to potentially manage thousands of titles each with different licence terms (all controlled automatically)
• Designed to operate in a closed management system (not open rights management metadata for the whole Internet - like INDECS)
• Potentially allowed Cinemedia to disburse returns from individual users directly to a number of underlying rights holders
• Whole idea of SWIFT was to use the technology to provide an accountable system for Cinemedia to hold and manage material for cultural reasons, while copyright owners could be sure they weren't being ripped off
• Was a great test bed, we learnt a lot (and produced some great artistic products)
• Unfortunately the system hasn't been implemented in an operational environment

Academic Libraries

• I'm currently working with the Information Resources section of Swinburne University on managing digital assets in an academic library
• Important shifts also happening in library environment
• Changing from organisations which acquire and manage physical 'things', to ones which are increasingly licensed (by external parties) to provided limited access to information
• Existing management structures designed for finding and tracking the movements of 'things'
• Current concerns are: cataloguing, tracking the location of books, providing long-term access
• Increasingly need to: search outside own catalogue, differentiate between patrons, deliver information across networks, ensure licence terms are complied with
• Software systems designed to track books often can't do this, some software vendors are designing e-reserve modules to manage digital files, but very little focus on licence management
• Increasingly academic libraries are only licensing access to information for specific periods
• Access usually provided to large bundled databases of information with their own search mechanisms
• Licence terms are usually take it or leave it, and they vary between vendors
• No guarantee of long-term access to the information

Rights Management Systems

• So I believe there is an increasing need for cultural and academic institutions to have access to automated copyright management systems
• Increasing pressure to digitise, repurpose and re-use material BUT this all depends on having the rights
• Cultural organisations need to:

1. Ensure at the outset that they are acquiring all the rights they're likely to need
2. Have a system in place to record licence information and have it accessible throughout the organisation
3. Preferably have the information held in a format which can be accessed and interpreted by both humans and machines
4. If possible operate a system which maintains a balance between providing public access to information and not jeopardising the legitimate economic (and now moral) rights of copyright owners

Future Organisations

• I believe that the cultural and educational institutions of the future will be more focused on managing rights than managing objects
• Now that all information can be stored on one medium (computer disk) more organisations are using multimedia systems to deliver their ideas
• All these organisations need to deliver material onto screens both within their own organisation and across the Internet
• So all these organisations need to:
• • Determine what their real rights needs are (including sometimes long-term storage in public interest)
  • Negotiate usage terms that suit these needs
  • Put systems in place to ensure that material is only used under the terms negotiated

• To do this some organisations will need to change their whole management focus
• I see cultural and educational institutions of the future operating more like broadcasters:
• • Acquiring, commissioning and producing material for use under specified licence terms AND
  • Ensuring that it is only used under terms of those agreements

• To do this will require automated rights management systems - can't manage 10s or 100s of digital items in any other way (unless you own them all completely)
• Can no longer afford to hold licences on paper in filing cabinets
• Need information held in electronic form which can be accessed by both humans and machines and is a dynamic part of the organisation's management systems

• Unfortunately most cultural and educational institutions don't have the resources available to develop large customised software systems
• Open copyright management metadata standards which will be interoperable by business systems across the Internet are still a long way off
• But organisations are going to need to manage their own rights information
• Any use of digital technologies involves significant additional costs in hardware, storage capacity, data management systems
• Important that intellectual property management is not neglected as part of this
• Likely to be one of the most important systems for efficient cultural and educational institutions of the future

>> View Robin Wright's Powerpoint presentation