Is April 26th Your Copyright Education and Awareness Day?
It is just about that time again to say "Happy World IP Day!" It is the day to
celebrate the wonderful contribution of intellectual property in our lives.
In 2000, member states (currently 188) of the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO) designated April 26 as World IP Day. Why April 26? It is
the day that the WIPO Convention came into force in 1970. The purpose of World
IP Day is to increase the understanding of IP among the general public beyond
copyright, patent and trademark lawyers. More specifically, WIPO sees World IP
Day as an occasion "to promote discussion of the role of intellectual property
in encouraging innovation and creativity."
This year, the World IP Day theme is Digital Creativity: Culture Reimagined .
What Are You Doing on World IP Day?
Organizations around the world are seizing the opportunity on World IP Day to
educate others about IP and the people and processes involved in creating IP.
You too could join in and host a film festival, organize a concert, or exhibit
inventions of local inventors. WIPO makes several suggestions of activities you
can do, including:
* mounting a public exhibition displaying how consumers benefit from IP
* organizing a workshop to educate specific users such as artists,
musicians and inventors about how IP rights benefit them
* promoting IP through social media
* running a photo contest to manifest creativity and the working of
copyright in practice
* creating and distributing World IP Day publicity materials such as
posters, brochures, et cetera for specific audiences
Spreading the IP Word
A celebration of World IP Day could be as simple as discussing downloading
(legally!) music with your children around the dinner table. Or sharing with a
colleague a URL to an article about legally using trademarks. Or posting a
message on your Facebook page about others obtaining permission to use your
photos. Whether we create or use IP, it is easy to see how IP is an integral
part of our daily lives.
One of my favourite quotes about understanding copyright law and “spreading the
copyright message” comes from U.S. Register for Copyright, Maria Pallante,
where she states that copyright is a life skill:
It’s one of those life skills now, right? When you graduate from high school or
college, you should know how to read a map, you should know how to use GPS, you
should know a little bit about copyright. If you are somebody who is going to
be in a field where you will encounter copyrighted materials all the time, you
should know more. If you’re going to be an artist or musician and you’re
getting a red-hot degree in the performing arts, you should know a lot. And I
don’t think that’s quite the case — I don’t think it’s been built into the
curricula.
What are you doing April 26th to celebrate the role of IP in museums and other
cultural institutions?
Lesley
For more copyright info like this, I invite you to join my free email list at
http://www.copyrightlaws.com/newsletter-letter-copyright-new-media-law-ecommerce/
_______________________________________________
You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer
Network (http://www.mcn.edu)
To post to this list, send messages to: [email protected]
To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit:
http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
The MCN-L archives can be found at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
