CREATe events for Autumn
Published: 17 October 2017
CREATe is pleased to announce a series of free Autumn events, including lectures, workshops and screening events.
CREATe is pleased to announce a series of free Autumn events, including lectures, workshops and screening events.
25 October 5.30pm - 7pm, Glasgow
Public Lecture: Public Art and Copyright Law (An Exploratory Analysis) by Lilla Montagnani (click for information and booking)
The creation of tangible copies from a work of art that is publicly displayed has always been a rare practice, until some recent cases attracted huge media attention. Zaha Hadid’s Wangjing Soho being pirated in Chongqing and the Chinese copy of the UNESCO-protected Austrian town of Halstatt have officially marked the entrance into the age of repeatability for architecture. “Public art” as copyright subject matter is indeed of particular interest. The analysis of the underpinning of private and public interests suggests that, as public art is born to be displayed in public spaces and to “exist” in a single copy, the author–owner–society relationship becomes exceptionally puzzling. It is this last relationship that modifies how architectural works are protected under copyright law and how, therein, the balance between private and public interest is struck.
8 November 5.30pm - 7pm, Glasgow
Public Lecture: Copyright Reversion to Authors (and the Rosetta Effect): Ameliorating the Problem of Disappearing Books by Paul Heald (click for information and booking)
Copyright keeps out-of-print books unavailable to the public, and commentators speculate that statutes transferring rights back to authors provide incentives for the republication of books from unexploited back catalogues. This study compares the availability of books whose copyrights have been subject to statutory reversion under US law with books whose copyrights are still controlled by the original publisher. It finds that 17 USC § 203, which permits reversion to authors in year 35 after publication, significantly increases in-print status. The 2002 decision in Random House v. Rosetta Books, which worked a sudden de facto reversion of ebook rights to authors, also has a positive effect on in-print status. Conversely, the rule of 17 USC § 304, which permits reversion 56 years after publication, does not correlate with any significant increase in availability. The data suggest a positive public benefit would attach to properly crafted reversion rights to authors. Reversion rights, unlike proposals to shorten the term of copyright, are permissible under the Berne Convention, and are politically palatable to legislatures.
10 November 1230pm - 1pm, Glasgow
Public Q&A (following closed Board Meeting): Copyright Evidence Wiki Board Meeting (click for information and booking)
The Copyright Evidence Wiki was initiated in 2015 by CREATe at the University of Glasgow and uses the open source MediaWiki platform. The purpose of the Wiki is to categorise existing empirical studies on copyright to inform public debate and policy based on objective evidence. The Public Q&A offers the opportunity to find out about the future development of the resource.
10 November 2pm - 4pm, Glasgow
Workshop: Copyright Education & Educating Users / Legal and business model constraints on the transformative value of heritage collections (click for information and booking)
How can the collections of libraries, archives, and museums be unlocked to create value across the creative industries, and inspire new innovations in digital research and development? How can the primary sources of our heritage be made accessible and usable and re-usable for creativity and enjoyment by the broadest demographics? In this workshop we consider some of the problematic issues that underpin many of these general exceptions to copyright. For example: What constitutes ‘non-commercial’ use? How does the new exception for quotation differ from the long-standing exception for criticism and review? When has a work been ‘made available’ to the public? When is it reasonable to assume that an author has died more than 70 years ago or more? Which exceptions will always be available to users, regardless of the terms and conditions of any contract?
15 November 5.30pm - 7pm, Glasgow
Public Lecture: Taking seriously the author’s interest in copyright by Rebecca Giblin (click for information and booking)
Copyright is fundamentally a system of incentives and rewards. But current approaches do a poor job of achieving either of these aims. Copyright’s incentive component is supposed to promote works’ continued availability, but rights are awarded in full, upfront, regardless of whether those investments are actually made – and very often they are not. The rewards component arises from creators’ moral claims, but the nature of creative labour markets means it very often ends up in the pockets of investors instead. Thus the ‘lump sum’ approach leads to enormous loss of cultural value – while still failing to get authors paid. Giblin will explore how taking authors’ interests in copyright seriously could provide the key not only to (finally) improving their remuneration outcomes, but simultaneously free up neglected rights for fresh exploitation, support the emergence of new distribution models and reduce oligopoly power
8 December 11am - 6.30pm, London
CREATe / BFI Education Screening Event: Copyright & Creative Reuse (click for information and booking)
The event will explore the role of copyright in relation to creativity, film archives, and education, with focus on creative reuse. The event will bring together copyright law experts, film archivists and custodians, filmmakers and other creators, and provide the platform for a constructive dialogue between the people who preserve and provide access to existing films, and those who wish to reuse films in the creation of new work.
First published: 17 October 2017