Jisc welcomes Gowers review of Intellectual Property

In particular Jisc welcomed its insistence on the need
for balance and flexibility in IP regimes and its emphasis on the vital
importance of the education sector to the UK’s knowledge economy. The
review has made a number of recommendations some of which, subject to
implementation, are like "Jisc will continue to monitor developments and to help
develop solutions that are flexible and support learning and
research."ly to have a significant impact upon teaching,
learning and research activities in the UK.

Sarah Porter, Jisc’s Head of Development said: “ICT is
now an integral part of education and research and there are a myriad of IP
issues now being faced by the education sector. The Gowers Review is
helpful in addressing some of these - for example, its recommendations
regarding orphan works and copyright. We need an IP regime that supports
the digital environment. Jisc will continue to monitor developments and to
help develop solutions that are flexible and support learning and
research.” 

The current IP regime severely restricts the ability of
staff in FE and HE to make copies for educational use. This is especially
true in the case of materials in e-learning packages, virtual learning
environments, etc. Jisc welcomes those recommendations (2, 8, 9, 10a, 10b,
11, 12) which will support greater use of varied teaching and
learning approaches, typical of those which may be funded by Jisc, as well
as assist librarians to better preserve our academic and cultural heritage
.  

Many universities and colleges may not own the rights in
sound recordings that they use as part of their core activities. Therefore
an extension of duration to the copyright of such recordings would have
been detrimental to education and research. Jisc welcomes the
recommendation (3) that the current length of protection (50 years) should
remain.  

The time and effort spent by staff in FE and HE in
tracing owners of orphan works (ie works for which the copyright owner is
unknown) in order to obtain clearance to copy them is considerable. Jisc
welcomes those recommendations (13,14a, 14b) which, if implemented, would
clarify the meaning of ‘reasonable search’ and the legal liability of
someone who has carried out such a search.

Jisc welcomes the recommendation (7) that patent rights
are not extended beyond their current limits in software.  

Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems have increasingly been used by
rights holders to block access to content and the effect of this is to
override the educational exceptions to copyright which users have
traditionally enjoyed. Consequently, many HE and FE staff and students may
in the future be restricted from accessing content to which they legally
have the right to access or for which copyright no longer even exists.
Furthermore, the law as currently implemented in the UK makes it virtually
impossible for an individual or institution to gain redress if a DRM
prevents access to material that is required for a bona fide purpose under
an exception to copyright. Whilst those recommendations which deal with DRM
(15, 16) are disappointing, Jisc believes they provide a better starting
point for ensuring that Jisc-funded projects are able to deploy DRMs in
more controlled environments and in accordance with industry standards to
ensure access to content for educational purposes.

While Jisc broadly welcomes the Gowers review, it will
continue to lobby for the optimum outcomes on behalf of UK further and
higher education, including lobbying to ensure that statutory exceptions
and permitted acts in relation to copyright law are not overridden by
contractual terms, an issue which the review has not addressed.
 

For further information on the Gowers review, please go
to:
Gowers review

For further information, please contact: Philip Pothen
(Jisc) on 07887 564 006 or p.pothen@jisc.ac.uk