Copyright and publicly funded arts and humanities research: identifying exploitation models in the digital economy

Lead Research Organisation: University of Exeter
Department Name: School of Law

Abstract

Arts and humanities researchers are both prolific producers and users of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works. These works are protected by copyright, a law which grants exclusive rights to the owner over exploitation of the work. So an arts and humanities researcher needs both to obtain consent to use existing works in her research, and give consent if her work is to be used by others. This can create a complex, and often opaque environment where many consents may be needed and need to be given. Challenges can then arise to dissemination and exploitation of the work if the correct permissions have not been given and obtained. Focusing on digital outputs, this project will track the creation and dissemination of works produced by arts and humanities researchers from point of funding of the research to the point at which it is disseminated in the digital economy. The purpose is to highlight some of the complexities involved and in so doing address the question: what copyright framework(s) would best support the translation of publicly funded arts and humanities research content into the digital/creative economy?
 
Description Our research was concerned with the relationships between copyright, publicly funded arts and humanities research and research processes in the digital era. We asked how researchers engage with copyright during research process and in the production of creative works, and what copyright related challenges emerge; how researchers' engagement with copyright might be affected by digitisation, collaboration, legislation, and government policies; and what range of works is produced during research, what researchers identify to be of value in their projects, and whether any of the benefits provided by copyright be mapped onto these values.

We found the following:
• Consistent with the existing, albeit limited, empirical research on copyright exceptions, researchers find the existing laws to be challenging in practice.
• To our surprise, we found that researchers faced a variety of challenges in negotiating access to and the use of out-of-copyright materials in archives.
• While economic benefit potentially arises from exploiting copyright in the outputs of research, neither academic researchers nor creative industry partners were interested in this direct benefit. Of much more importance was the benefit that could be derived from asserting the right to be identified as an "author" of the output.
• There was value for all case study participants to be derived from the collaborative research processes.
Exploitation Route One of the areas that we covered in our research was the text and data mining copyright exception which was, at that time, only in draft form. This has since been implemented into law. Our aim is that this work should be taken forwards in the next year or so to ascertain what impact this exception is having in practice.

As also noted, of particular interest to other jurisdictions is the requirement in the UK IP policy making for research to be clear, verifiable and capable of being reproduced. This project has been seen as an exemplar and interest has been shown in Australia and Hong Kong.
Sectors Creative Economy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
 
Description The findings were presented at a conference in South Africa - the Association of Teachers and Researchers in Intellectual Property. What was most interesting for many members of the audience was the research methodology (case study) which in turn was the type of research which could be relied on by policy makers in the Intellectual Property Office (IPO). The IPO requires research to be clear, verifiable and able to be peer reviewed. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/388238/consult-2011-copyright-evidence.pdf In this the UK IPO is a leader in the field. Academics from Australia and Hong Kong were most interested in both the good evidence guide and the research and this is likely to result in invitations to engage in those jurisdictions
First Year Of Impact 2015
Sector Government, Democracy and Justice
Impact Types Policy & public services
 
Description Starting to encourage policy thinking around the copyright exception for text and data mining
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Membership of a guideline committee