Culture is future » Innovation and digital

Always Further - The future of digital culture is in copyright

Digital technologies and the Internet question the efficiency of intellectual property rights. With a promise of an universal access to culture (democratization of knowledge and instant copy of cultural works at a lower cost), digital can lead, in the same time, to a destruction process of creative works and therefore a weakening of economic models of cultural industries.

These trends raise the question of policy on copyright. Society should think about a solution that would allow putting available cultural works to a large audience while allowing creators, artists and business partners to survive and keep on creating – this governing balance when copyright was created.

According to Francis Gurry, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), rather than adopting a position of followership, we should adapt in an active way by following, notably, these principles: working with various existing technologies so copyright may promote cultural dynamism, adapting laws to new infrastructures and platforms on the Internet and making the various institutions collaborate. It is important to give a sense of responsibility to the intermediaries and also to create new rules from a vision that can only be international. Finally, we have to communicate with public, so they will be ready to share responsibilities regarding cultural policy.

It is only thanks to an intelligent and active adaption that copyright can answer to the new challenges of the digital society.

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A contribution of the University of Avignon/Guillaume Hidrot

Credits: Guillaume Hidrot