Copyright online

The online world and those who inhabit it throw up challenges to the legitimacy of copyright law and the methods and effectiveness of enforcing it. What might be styled the “open rights position” emphasises the utility of the internet as a communications medium and a source of freely-flowing ideas unsuited to copyright models grounded in the age of the printing press. The creative industries are anxious to ensure their intellectual property rights are not compromised by developments in technology which might in turn reduce incentives to innovate. Governments across the world have worked on ensuring enforcement mechanisms remain effective while, at the same time, encouraging the creative industries to deploy some of their creativity towards the establishment of new, and more appropriate, business models.