Intellectual property rights in the Information Society
The European Commission has published the proceedings of a workshop on "Technical mechanisms for the management of intellectual property rights (IPR) in the Information Society". The workshop was held in Brussels on 10 June 1996, and is intended to be a contribution to the G7 pilot project "A global market place for SMEs". The growth of multimedia information, with the ability to be transferred and copied without any loss of quality, means that new approaches to intellectual property rights need to be defined. The types of intellectual property, how they are valued and exploited must be determined before the protection of rights can be decided. The growth in material available through the information infrastructure is likely to be restricted until the owners of these materials are satisfied that their rights are adequately protected. One argument states that the existing balance of rights and obligations between rights holders and users should be maintained, whereas others suggest that protection must not restrict access to information, but should exploit the available technologies. The workshop discussed the Community's actions and policies in the area of intellectual property rights (IPR) in multimedia. In particular, as part of the Community's specific RTD programme in the field of information technologies (ESPRIT), electronic copyright management systems (ECMS), which are hosted by digital networks and serve both on-line and off-line rights management and clearance, are being developed. Standards for IPR were identified as follows: - A generic tattooing definition, which would be applied to information, and be copied with that information, for all users; - A "black box" which would be embedded in any hardware which processes digital information; - Means of payment: a smartcard with enriched functionality such as ability to identify user categories for privileged information; - ECMS: systems would need to be compatible and interoperable to allow cross-border operation. A number of Commission-funded projects are already operating in the area of IPR in multimedia, and there will be a further call for proposals in this area as part of the ESPRIT call for proposals, due to be launched on 15 September 1996.