WIPO Director General Francis Gurry said at a conference on the future of copyright hosted by Australian Faculty of Law of the Queensland University last week, that the central question facing the evolution of copyright policy is how to maintain a balance between availability of cultural works at affordable prices while assuring a dignified economic existence for creators and performers.
Digital technology is having a radical impact on those balances. “Rather than resist it, we need to accept the inevitability of technological change and to seek an intelligent engagement with it,“he said. “There is, in any case, no other choice, either the copyright system adapts to the natural advantage that has evolved or it will perish.“
WIPO Director General Francis Gurry said there is no “single magical answer” to the development of a successful policy response to the challenges facing copyright in the digital age, but a combination of “law, infrastructure, cultural change, institutional collaboration and better business models.”
The Director General said there are three main principles that should guide the development of a successful policy response.
The first is “neutrality to technology and to the business models developed in response to technology.”
Licensing system as easy to use as an illegal download
A second principle, he said is “comprehensiveness and coherence in the policy response.”…“infrastructure is as important a part of the solution as law.”…“We need a global infrastructure that permits simple, global licensing, one that makes the task of licensing cultural works legally on the Internet as easy as it is to obtain such works there illegally,” he said.
In this respect, Mr. Gurry said “an international music registry (a global repertoire database) would be a very valuable and needed step in the direction of establishing the infrastructure for global licensing. And, secondly, in order to be successful, future global infrastructure must work with the existing collecting societies and not seek to replace them.”
Not blaming people as pirate but making them feel responsible
The culture of the Internet also needs to be taken into consideration. Referring to the high rates of illegal downloading, Mr. Gurry said “In order to effect a change in attitude, I believe that we need to re-formulate the question that most people see or hear about copyright and the Internet. People do not respond to being called pirates…”They would respond, I believe, to a challenge to sharing responsibility for cultural policy”.
The third guiding principle for a successful response to the digital challenge is the need more simplicity in copyright. “We risk losing our audience and public support if we cannot make understanding of the system more accessible.”
Image over the headline.- Sir Francis Gurry (WIPO General Director). © OMPI.
