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Building Consensus on Copyright Management
Building consensus on copyright management On-line discussion groups are helping to establish a consensus on means of information trading which met the needs of both IPR owners, service providers and end-users.
In the emerging Information Society there are many conflicting interests between rights-owners, information providers and end-users with respect to copyright and intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection. The IMPRIMATUR consortium is working to reconcile these differences stimulating public debate aimed at developing a consensus in this field. This work is of particular importance for the "information industries" whose business lies in the creation, trading and use of information. The project operates primarily through a publicly accessible Web site, which facilitates a two-way exchange of information between the information industry and IPR owners on IPR management issues. Eventually IMPRIMATUR will devise and recommend processes to protect and trade all types of intellectual property, whereby rights are respected while user needs are met.
There are currently many obstacles to an international trade in information arising, for example, from variation of business practices, incompatibility of technological solutions, lack of legal harmonisation, and the lack or unsuitability of standards. Through it's global interface on the WWW, IMPRIMATUR is investigating these issues. Through the Web page all interested parties can be kept informed of, and participate in, the shaping of IPR management by contributing information which can then be utilised in consensus building.
The Web Site is accessible through any suitable Netscape or similar browser and uses not only conventional Web techniques, but also a number of Java Applets. The two significant functions of the site are firstly as a bulletin board, providing the structure 
for an electronic discussion forum, and secondly for information collection. Part of the site contains electronic versions of scenario-based questionnaires which are automatically collated and analysed. Information thus collected is subsequently used to inform the project's on-going consensus building activity. 'Hot-links' to other sites provides access to a wide range of information relevant to those interested in IPR management.
Information from the public bulletin board and other information gathering activities is fed into two areas. Firstly all interested parties are invited to participate in a series of special interest groups (SIGs), some consisting of meetings, others conducted electronically. Secondly, the IMPRIMATUR Consensus Fora provide an environment where major interested parties can work on the results of the SIGs and the Web site and begin to synthesise proposals which will increase the level of consensus on key copyright and IPR management issues.
tel +44-171-436-5578 -- fax +44-171-436-5579
e-mail 1 chris.barlas@alcs.co.uk
e-mail 2 peter.nancarrow@alcs.co.uk
www http://www.imprimatur.alcs.co.uk
Research Area Multimedia
Project IMPRIMATUR
Related Results AMIDE; COPEARMS; COPICAT; COPYSMART; CITED
Keywords copyright protection;intellectual property rights; multimedia publishing, on-line information services, protection of;
| Project Participants |
|---|
| ALCS UK |
| Bertelsmann AG DE |
| British Library UK |
| CISAC FR |
| CliPet Communications UK |
| Croft Communications Consultancy UK |
| Digicash NL |
| EUSIDIC LU |
| Florence University IT |
| IFPI UK |
| IMPRIMATUR Legal Consultancy-ILC UK |
| Interactive Multimedia Association - IMA US |
| Teles GmbH DE |
| Telia AB SE |
| Thomson Multimedia FR |
home page | Results Zone | IT Solutions | Application Areas | Research Areas | Multimedia The URL for this page is /esprit/src/results/res_area/mm/mm12.htm
This page was last updated on 22 November 1996, and is maintained by esprit@dg3.cec.be