Responses to The Hargreaves Review

Posted by Tim O'Riordan on Wednesday 18 May 2011 at 5:02pm
Tags: copyright |

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It’s been a busy day online for experts commenting on The Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property and Growth. From the excitedly positive, to the guarded welcome, to the completely anti, there's been a mixed response – but most see the benefits of overhauling the UK's out-dated and labyrinthine IP environment.

Author of the JISC Orphan Works Report, Naomi Korn provides an expert overview of what the landscape for the creation and use of Open Educational Resources may look like in the future (if the Review’s recommendations are implemented).

The British Library, Research Councils UK and the Wellcome Trust welcome the Reviews' recommendations and highlight the importance of implementation to the furtherance of the UK’s research profile.

Responses from the media industry cover a wider shade of opinion. The Publishers Association and industry sources reported in Music Week and The Guardian are generally positive and see possibilities for new market activity. However Martin Spence of the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union (BECTU) is quoted in The Register as believing the Review to be “dead on arrival”, and Neil Allcock, a partner at Deloitte who specialises in licensing says in The Telegraph that the recommendations are all “pretty easy to say but very hard to do”.  Bernie Corbett writing on the Writers' Guild of Great Britain blog comprehensively rubbishes the report, focussing on the Reviews' proposal to set up a Digital Copyright Exchange within 18 months, he says, “How will the Digital Copyright Exchange work out how the income from a TV programme or theatre play should be shared out among the writer, the performers, the director, the designer, the producer, Uncle Tom Cobley and all? This will be a bureaucratic albatross around all our necks.”

The future of the Review is now in the hands of the government. Business secretary Vince Cable is says in a ZDNet report "I welcome this report and its clear link between intellectual property and potential economic growth” and The Financial Times reports that Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary hopes the government response to the review would be outlined this summer.

JISC Digital Media Advice

Copyright – an overview
Finding subject-specific digital media resources
 

JISC Digital Media Training

Copyright and Digital Media

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