Creativity and Copyright in the Net Economy – Hamburg Initiative for the Protection of Intellectual Property

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“Hamburg as a media location wants to position itself with the further development of copyright and ancillary rights”, explained state council Dr. Nikolas Hill to representatives of the media and advertising industry at Hamburg town hall on 5 March 2010 on the occasion of presenting the project “Creativity and Copyright in the Net Economy”, which is supported by the Authority of Culture, Sports and Media. The project is led by the Hans Bredow Institute and supposed to develop options how copyright law can be adjusted to the terms of the Internet and modern communication, with the objective to make better use of the social and economical potential of the media industry. An expert group consisting of researchers from the University of Hamburg, the Hans Bredow Institute, Bucerius Law School, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, and the Hamburg Media School, is currently developing suggestions. This happens in dialogue with the industry and international academic advisors from Australia, China, UK, Israel, the Netherlands, Austria, and the USA. State council Dr. Hill: “Over 20.000 companies from the media and creative industry have established themselves in Hamburg. For the industry and for Hamburg, we need a fair legal framework which balances interests of creators, companies and users. This is not about short-term changes, but a sustainable copyright.”

Dr. Wolfgang Schulz: “The project is particularly challenging: the value chain is fundamentally changing in many places. Only when ideas from different academic disciplines come together and a real workshop of ideas develops, there is a chance to adequately react to this. Since the same questions are being faced virtually everywhere in the world, we also want to look at solutions, which have proven successful in other countries.”

The project emerged from the International Media Dialogue Hamburg on 8 June 2009, when publishers, the music industry, the association of communication agencies and the Alliance of Producers in Film & TV passed statements in which they demanded the protection of their performance. By now the publishers’ statement has been adopted by the association of publishers in Europe and worldwide.

 

Photo: www.mediaserver.hamburg.de/C. Spahrbier