This collection of essays, sourced from the education and research community, present varying views to the working and interpretations of the UK’s intellectual property laws. They are not intended to reflect nor endorse one another, but instead together present the ‘grassroots view’ of the UK’s copyright framework and ideas on how it could be updated to work in this new and changing environment. There is a consensus that the laws on copyright and their interpretation must be redefined in the context of a modernising world and developing research techniques.

Each of these authors and contributors to the knowledge economy, has encountered obstructions and barriers in their daily work when faced with understanding copyright regulations. They have made their own suggestions and proposals as to how the law can be modified in order to reflect the needs of today’s researcher. The British Library’s aim in compiling this collection is to contribute practical examples of how copyright affects the UK research community in the ongoing debate on our intellectual property framework.

The changes that contributors have proposed are their own and not the British Library’s. They cover a range of areas and include a wealth of ideas:

• calls for an extension to fair dealing provisions under UK copyright law to bring them into line with fair use doctrine in the US. One author addresses the difficulties of applying fair dealing provisions in the study of music and sound recordings.

• allowing the use of ‘orphan works’. One submission advocates that ‘orphan works’ be placed in the public domain.

• enforcing creators’ moral rights in order to preserve future creativity, and the need for exceptions to copyright law not being overridden by contract or by technical protection measures.

• addressing the issue of text mining and data indexing in the context of the barriers posed by the existing copyright regime.

A key point that resonates throughout these essays is that the role of teachers, researchers and creative artists as well as rights holders must all be recognised within any new intellectual property framework.

The Contributors

1. Professor Lionel Bently

Lionel Bently is the Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property and Director of the Centre of Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Cambridge. He is a Professorial Fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

2. Professor Nick Cook

Nicholas Cook is 1684 Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge and the author of eight books on topics from Beethoven to multimedia. His Music: A Very Short Introduction has been translated into twelve different languages.

3. Dr Estelle Derclaye

Estelle Derclaye is Associate Professor and Reader in Intellectual Property Law at the University of Nottingham. Her main interests are in intellectual property law, in particular copyright and designs law. Her latest book Copyright and Cultural Heritage: Preservation and Access to Works in a Digital World is due to be published later this year.

4. Richard Donkin

Richard Donkin is a Financial Times columnist and the author of Blood Sweat and Tears, The Evolution of Work. He works as a commentator and writer on management and employment issues. He is an honorary visiting fellow in the faculty of management, Cass Business School, City University, London and is also a fellow

of the Royal Society for the Arts in the UK.

5. Dr Gabriel Egan

Dr Egan is a reader in Shakespeare Studies at Loughborough University. He is the author of Shakespeare and Marx, Green Shakespeare, and The Struggle for Shakespeare's Text.

6. Professor Jeremy G Frey

Professor Frey is a Professor of Physical Chemistry and Head of the Structure & Materials Section at the University of Southampton.

7. Mike Holderness

Mike Holderness is a journalist specialising in science and technology, whose time is increasingly occupied by issues around creators’ rights. He chairs the Creators’ Rights Alliance.

8. Lucian J Hudson

Lucian J Hudson is Partner and Managing Director, Cornerstone Global Associates, a strategy and management consultancy that tackles the intractable. He is a former Director of Communication, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and served as

the UK Government's first Director of e-Communications.

9. Reem Kelani

Reem Kelani is a Palestinian musician. In addition to music performances, Reem conducts workshops on Arabic and Palestinian music in schools, colleges, and at festivals. She is also a regular broadcaster.

10. Naomi Korn

Naomi Korn is an experienced IP Consultant with a keen interest in digital licensing, rights management and rights exploitation. She is a partner in the Naomi Korn Copyright Consultancy which is a leading supplier of specialist copyright and rights management solutions and services to large and small cultural heritage organisations, educational establishments and small businesses.

11. Marshall Mateer

Marshall Mateer has worked as a teacher, lecturer in education, local authority adviser and broadband project manager and is currently a consultant for the National Education Network on content, digital resources and IPR. His media projects

in progress include documentary film (International Brigades), photography and mixed-media.

12. Dr Cameron Neylon

Cameron Neylon is a biophysicist with an interest in how to make the internet more effective as a tool for science. He writes and speaks regularly on scholarly communication, the design of web based tools for research, and the need for policy and cultural change within and around the research community.

13. Dr Dave Roberts and Vince Smith

Dave Roberts is Head of the Division of Protista & Mathematics in the Natural History Museum, London and workpackage leader for ‘Unifying Revisionary Taxonomy on the Web’ within the EU project EDIT (European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy).

Vince Smith is a cybertaxonomist at the Natural History Museum, London. His research interests include virtual research environments to support the work of scientific communities.