This chapter of the IPR toolkit provides an overview of the key issues to understanding the role and importance of Intellectual Property Rights and licensing within an e-content framework.

IPR toolkit - Introduction and overview

Strategic Content Alliance partnersSCA IPR toolkit - Practical tools

 

Back to the Intellectual Property Rights toolkit

Who is this toolkit for?

This toolkit, aimed to raise levels of IPR and licensing literacy across the public sector, has been produced by Naomi Korn and Professor Charles Oppenheim on behalf of the Strategic Content Alliance.

It has been written for a range of people working across the UK public sector who are involved in:

  • The daily management and/or clearance of rights
  • The management of staff and/or projects who are involved in managing and/or clearing rights
  • Establishing or responsible for setting corporate policies
  • Establishing or responsible for setting policies regarding the provision of public-sector funding
  • The negotiation and/or receipt of public-sector funding
  • The procurement of contracted services and/or skills

It is primarily aimed at non-experts who are likely to have some kind of involvement with IPR and licensing issues as part of a broad range of other activities in which they are involved. It is therefore likely to be most useful for people in small organisations/services, or those conducting small projects in larger organisations.

Please note: this guidance has been prepared for information purposes only and is not, nor is intended to be, legal advice. This information is not intended to constitute, and receipt of it does not constitute, a contract for legal advice or the establishment of a solicitor–client relationship.

Why, what, who…?

Why are IPR and licensing issues important to public-sector bodies?

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and licensing issues will be central to the creation, sharing and delivery of e-content, amongst sponsors of the Strategic Content Alliance (SCA) and other public-sector organisations. However, the complexity of rights and permissions associated with the broad range of e-content held by public-sector bodies, plus the necessity for succinct processes, documentation and staff awareness to manage such issues, means that access and use of e-content may not always be optimised. In typical circumstances where public-sector bodies are likely to generate their own IPR, as well as be responsible for providing access to IPR owned by third-party rights holders, it is important that these issues are addressed in order to maximise opportunities and also remove potential barriers in the sharing of e-content within and across the public sector.

The SCA IPR Consultancy, led by Naomi Korn and Professor Charles Oppenheim, has been dedicated to identifying the optimal legal, technical and organisational structures that can lower barriers and allow its sponsors to take advantage of opportunities for effectively using internet technologies to provide access to e-content.

Diagram: Flow of content

This work has included the creation of an interoperable IPR framework of best practice, outlined in this guide, which takes into account the eclectic nature of content that is generated and held by the sponsors of the SCA.

The types of e-content that are typically encountered, owned and generated by public sector bodies include a combination of both born-digital and digital surrogate material, including:

  • Research data and derived data
  • Photographs and images
  • Audio visual material such as broadcasts, footage, sound recordings and film
  • Journals, books, newspapers, policy documents, and other print material
  • Ephemera (postcards, posters, flyers etc)
  • Archival and unpublished material such as manuscripts, letters and diaries
  • User-generated content
  • Databases
  • Multimedia

Much of this content, particularly in digital form, will combine various different varieties of content-types.

Crucially, the length of copyright protection, the heterogeneity of this content and the likelihood of mash-ups and creations of media-rich works, will result in multiple layers of rights, owned by a diverse range of rights holders.

For example, a piece of music found on iTunes may include the words, which will be protected as a text based work, the music, and the recording of the piece. All will potentially be protected by copyright and may require permission for reuse from more than one rights holder.

Rights holders can include any of the following and a combination thereof located across international jurisdictions:

  • Public-sector bodies themselves
  • Creators
  • The Crown
  • Licensing agencies and other nominated agents and administrators
  • Business and other sectors
  • Non-staff and other third-party rights holders

However, out of all these, a growing and unresolved issue for public-sector bodies remains the vast quantity of culturally, historically and academically valuable works, usually of low commercial value, for which the rights holders are unknown or cannot be traced, (so called ’orphans works’). A recent survey of 503 respondents across the public sector, carried by the SCA and the Collections Trust,[1] has revealed the figure to be around 5–10% of all works, which at a minimum extrapolation, would amount to 25 million works across the cultural heritage sector alone. Evidence pulled from the SCA IPR Case Studies also reveals that in most digitisation projects, the costs of identifying and negotiating with rights owners exceed the costs of acquiring the actual licences.

Dealing with copyright-protected works and, specifically, those that might be classed as ’orphan works‘ reinforces the importance of basic IPR and licensing literacy across the public sector. In particular, the effective management of rights needs to be supported by standard forms, documentation systems and high levels of staff awareness about copyright and risk management. This is important in order for public-sector bodies to make informed decisions to take full advantage of their content, providing public access and reducing risks. Certainly, rights management should be seen as an ongoing process within a broader IP ecosystem of events, workflows and standards, rather than an occasional, one-off event.

What is in this toolkit?

The SCA IPR toolkit comprises a composite set of resources for use and adaptation to suit specific needs of content creators and content users across the public sector who are responsible for rights management and rights clearances. The tools provided here comprise basic building blocks to enable you to adapt and conduct your own rights management and clearance procedures. What this toolkit will not provide you with is a ready-made IPR and licensing toolkit that is specifically designed for your own requirements.

This toolkit is built upon current good practice and a starting point for further reading, which is provided in Appendix A (Bibliography). Over the course of time and in response to user requirements it is intended that these essential resources will be supplemented by further tools.

Using the toolkit

The resources contained within this toolkit have been specifically created as well as derived and adapted from a number of sources, as indicated. They can be divided into the following types of basic tools, which provide:

  • The legal and legislative context of rights issues across the public sector
  • Basic resources for seeking rights permissions, management of rights and assessment of risks
  • An outline of proposed policy considerations, which facilitate sharing of content across the public sector

This toolkit is likely to be of benefit across the following organisations:

  • Cultural Heritage
  • Education
  • Research
  • Health
  • Public Broadcasting

The tools and resources, created as templates and information resources, can be used and repurposed to suit issues such as these, whilst taking into account the following factors associated with the public-sector bodies:

  • There is a vast range of organisations, staffing (and non-staffing) structures and needs
  • Organisations vary in their funding sources and governance structures
  • Many use a range of business models and sustainability activities to support their core activities

The tools are supplemented by a number of case studies, which map the flow of content, rights and value across the public sector according to a number of rights clearance models, as well as referencing how the SCA IPR Toolkit might play a role.

Navigating the toolkit

This guide contains some basic scenario use cases and a navigation map, which can provide access points to the various tools and resources.

Whilst the scenarios link back to the numbered resources, the navigation map works on the principle, established by the JISC-funded Web2Rights project that cultural perceptions about the relevance of IPR and licensing issues associated with e-content often present greater obstacles than the issues themselves. In particular, where to find authoritative and appropriate resources and, once found, what tools should be used, when and how, can present some of the biggest obstacles to engaging fully with IPR and licensing issues.

Collectively, the scenarios and navigation map provide the types of scenarios that might arise within public-sector organisations, as well as diagrammatic workflows outlining critical points of tensions within a dynamic IP ecosystem. They also help by providing the right questions to be asked and reference to the appropriate resources to ensure that rights and permissions are dealt with.

Scenarios

The types of uses anticipated for the tools and resources within this toolkit include the following scenarios, which have been linked to the resources in the toolkit that are likely to be of greatest benefit:

Click diagram to open a PDF version

Navigation map

Understanding the issues

IPR, Licensing and their Importance across the Public Sector

Substantial amounts of public-sector investment have taken place in digital assets, infrastructure and services to support enhanced engagement with e-content for formal and informal learning, research and skills development. There is clearly a risk that unless IPR and licensing is dealt with appropriately, content will continue to be provided within individually branded content silos, tied up in differing licensing regimes. Users will not fully benefit from the public investment that has been made in these initiatives nor participate in a Digital Britain. Overcoming these barriers, and ensuring that public-sector bodies are kitted up to deal with content use, creation and management for the future, requires a common understanding and concerted action on the part of all agencies and organisations in the field. It needs a recognition and commitment that IPR and licensing needs need to be met by implementation of a series of processes, policies and information management-related practices, such as those identified within this Toolkit.

Overview of IPR

IPR underpins any level of engagement with creative content and the Creative Industries. It provides legal protection for the fruits of human imagination, skill, invention and endeavour. Subsequently, IPR issues are prevalent within the use, creation, repurposing, alteration, transaction and dissemination of content. They will underpin to some degree public-sector engagement with content and a variety of related activities.

There are a number of IPRs that are likely to be relevant to public-sector bodies. These are likely to include:

  • Copyright
  • Trademarks
  • Design Rights
  • Patents
  • Moral Rights
  • Confidentiality/Trade Secrets
  • Performers’ Rights
  • Database Rights

More information about each of these can be found in resource ’1.2 IPR and Web 2.0‘, as well as possible exceptions to copyright, which might be used as defences to certain types of copying.

IPRs are robustly protected by the law, which means that unauthorised use may result in civil, and sometimes even criminal remedies. Whilst some IPRs are proprietary (ie can be asserted against all third parties and transferred to others), such as the ownership of trademarks, patents and copyright, others are personal or relational (ie they bind only persons in a specific and normally direct relationship).

For example:

  • A performer’s right to authorise the recording of a live performance and to control the distribution of illicit recordings is personal and non-transferable except on death. An example might include the ability of a freelance lecturer to control how their lecture is disseminated, which will require their permission. This toolkit provides a model consent form which can be adapted and used to help ensure that such permission is appropriately sought
  • Computer programs may be protected by copyright (as literary works) and may also in some circumstances be patentable, particularly in the USA
  • Films or audio recordings of learning events – various rights may be owned by different persons: thus, if a film or audio recording is made of a learning event such as students performing a scene from a play, the right to the film or recording would belong to the person who made the arrangements for it (the producer), the play has separate protection as a dramatic work, and the performers must authorise the recording or filming of the performance
  • A database may have full copyright protection and/or may be protected under the specific database right. Individual pieces of data or content included within the database might each be protected by copyright and the software in which the database is built might be protected by patents. There may also be trademarks in the name of the database or its software

Most IPR require no formalities, notably copyright is automatic, but some require registration, in particular patents. Designs need not be registered, but registered designs obtain specific and stronger protection.

Moral rights

Moral rights are personal to authors. They include, for example, the right of authors of scholarly publications to ensure that they are suitably credited. The various kinds of rights are generally cumulative so that the same activity or product may be protected by more than one right and potentially all the rights will require clearance.

Moral rights were introduced in the UK in the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, and therefore only apply to content created after 1 August 1989 (the date that the Act was implemented), as well as only applying to works protected by copyright. They are quite separate from the economic rights associated with copyright-protected works. The Moral right protections given under UK law are much less extensive than in other countries. In the UK they are as follows:

  1. The right of attribution, ie to be identified as the author or director of a work, which depends on the author having formally asserted it. It does not apply to a computer program, works that appear in a periodical (it is not clear if that includes scholarly articles in journals), computer-generated work, the design of a typeface, or a work made for the purpose of reporting current events. In the case of works created by employees in the course of their employment, it does not apply to any acts done with the authority of the copyright owner, ie the employer or anyone to whom copyright has been transferred. It only applies to works in Crown or Parliamentary copyright if the author has previously been identified as such on published copies.
  2. The right to object to a false attribution, ie not to have a work falsely attributed to you as author or director. It also applies to a false attribution of an adaptation or copy of a work. This right lasts for only 20 years after the death of the person falsely attributed as author. It is infringed by various kinds of acts of issuing copies, exhibiting, performing or showing a work to the public, or dealing with it in the course of business, either knowing or having reason to believe the attribution is false.
  3. The right of integrity, ie to object to derogatory treatment. In the UK this is limited to a distortion or mutilation of a work, which the courts have considered to require prejudice to the honour or reputation of the author. UK courts are not as willing as those in other countries to accept the artist’s view of what is a distortion, but apply an objective test based on how the public would perceive it. In the case of a work created by an employee in the course of employment, when copyright vests in the employer, it does not apply to acts done with the authority of the copyright owner, except that if the employee has been identified as the author, there must also be a clear and prominent indication that the author has not consented to the treatment. It does not apply to a computer program or computer-generated work, or a work made for the purpose of reporting current events. There are also some other specific exceptions.
  4. There is also a right to privacy of photographs or films commissioned for private and domestic purposes, to prevent copies being issued to the public or the work being shown in public or communicated to the public, which is regarded as a moral right.

Public-sector organisations need to be aware of the importance of respecting the moral rights of third parties, above all to ensure that they suitably credit the author of a piece of content. It may also be necessary to obtain permission or a waiver from the author in editing or manipulating content created by a third party, if it might be regarded as a derogatory treatment.

Licences

Licences are the tools to facilitate permissions to use and sometimes even access to content that is created by third parties. These permissions are normally granted by the rights holder or a third party represented to act on behalf of the rights holder. These licences can take a number of different forms, sometimes even for the same content. The most common types of licences which public-sector bodies are likely to encounter include the following.

Transactional licence

These are agreements to use content in which rights are owned by third parties, on a case by case basis.

For example:

A doctor wishes to use a graph in a research paper, which has been created by a colleague from another institution. Unless permission had been provided already, for example, via an open content licence (see below), then permission would probably be sought using an agreement for a one-off use. Template licences are supplied within this toolkit, which can provide assistance with this issue.

Open content licences

These are licences that provide the rights holder with the tools to pre-grant users’ permissions to use their content, usually under terms that place the least restrictions upon the user. There are a number of different types of open content licences, but the most commonly used and known are the Creative Commons licences.

For example:

A teacher wants to use images found in an image-sharing site for developing into online learning games. These have been licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial licence. It is important that the teacher understands what can and cannot be done with the image under the specific terms of this licence.

Blanket licences

These licences refer to permissions that rights holders can grant users in advance for a number of uses of a particular piece of material, as well as permission granted by a collecting society acting on behalf of a number of rights holders granting permissions for a range of uses by a number of users.

For example:

  • A gallery seeks permission from an artist to reproduce an image for online access. At the same time, they also seek permission for other uses within the gallery for which the work might be used.
  • A university library pays annually for a photocopying and scanning licence, which permits staff and students to create copies of a broad range of published text-based works under certain conditions. Subscription-based agreements: these might take the form of subscriptions to specific types of resources.
  • A Health Service Procurement Unit pays an annual subscription fee for access to a range of electronic resources, which can used across the Health Service.

With the potential of using and creating vast amounts of content, both singularly and also mash-ups, public-sector bodies need to be mindful of the range and number of licences they might encounter. In particular, they need to anticipate and plan for the likelihood of:

  • Multiple rights
  • Multiple licences
  • So called ‘licence pollution’, where licences associated with one type of content are not compatible with licences issued in association with other types of content

These resources and case studies supported within this Toolkit can help to identify such issues, as well as provide appropriate entry and starting points for managing the associated information.

A researcher wishes to reproduce third-party content in an article that they are writing and wants to know how they might seek permission?
A teacher in a school wishes to play a film in class, which they have found on an online content sharing site. Would this use be legally permissible and, if not, what should they do about seeking permission?
A college is planning on digitising its students’ theses, which include a number of works for which the rights holders are unknown or cannot be traced ’orphan works‘. They would like to understand more about how any risks might be managed, where they might look to trace any rights holders and what they might do in order to carry ’due diligence‘ efforts.
A funding body wishes to commission a project, but is unsure of the rights and licensing issues that might arise and what it should be considering.
A museum wishing to digitise its collection works, many of the rights in which are owned by third parties, needs to know whom should they ask for permission, how and what types of forms and permission agreements should they be using and how should they be managing the rights and permissions once granted.
A curator wishes to document rights and permissions associated with their collections in their collections management system and would like some kind of template?
A project manager working in a public-sector organisation wants to create an online wiki for users to contribute content, but is unsure about what measures to put in place to safeguard their organisation in case any of the content is inappropriate or infringes third-party rights.
A public-sector body is considering seeking funding for a project, but is unsure of the types of rights and licensing issues that might arise and what its obligations may be.
A university wishes to create a wiki for students to upload course work and comments about work produced by their peers and would like to know whether they need to seek students’ permissions if they wish to reuse any of the content uploaded.
A volunteer is producing a learning module for a public-sector organisation and wants to use content that they find on an image-sharing website, together with content found on a social networking site.
A historic palace wants to use material produced by volunteers.
An HR manager wishes to develop an IPR Policy for their public-sector body and wants to refer to some template clauses as a starting point.
A public broadcaster wishes to record a member of the public communicating their views about a particular issue, and wants to know what type of consent they should request.
An archive wishes to provide access to its collections under a Creative Commons licence, but it wants clarification about whether it should use it or not, and if so, which type of licence might be the most suitable.
Several public-sector bodies are working in partnership on a digitisation project. They want to establish a framework that outlines their respective roles and responsibilities, particularly regarding the ownership and use of rights that they bring to the project, as well as those that are generated as a result of the project.
A gallery is approached by a film company to make a film on its premises. It is supplied with a standard form, but is unsure about the meaning of some of the terminology that is used.
A library wishes to mass digitise its collection of journals, many of which include publishers who cannot be found or are unknown. They are unsure what they should do.
A health library is receiving funding from external sources to create a repository. However, they are unsure whether they can use the funding to seek permissions.
A member of staff produces work in their own time, which is beyond their job description, which their employer wishes to use.
An e-learning specialist wishes to engage with next-generation technologies to create personalised learning spaces and wants to find out the types of IPR and other legal issues that might arise.
A teacher wishes to use photos of children on a website and would like to find out more about some of the issues as well as have access to a model consent form.
A web designer working in a public-sector organisation has been asked to develop an ’Acceptable Use Policy’ but is uncertain about what this means?

 

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