 recording as well, and you're ready to go. Good morning, everybody. This is the 55th webinar that we've run for the Copyright and Online Learning Special Interest Group. So I'm Chris Morrison. And I'm Jane Secker, and we are the co-chairs of the Old Special Interest Group for Copyright and Online Learning, as you said, and we've been hosting these webinars now since March 2020. And we're very excited to be in our new basement studio, which is why I've just temporarily taken the sides down so that you can see us in all the glory and we'll come back to that in a moment. Yes. So let's crack on with what we're talking about today. Another excellent lineup. We've got some really interesting bits of copyright news. We've got some, well, fantastic guests. Again, special feature on the book, Navigating Copyright for Libraries, Purpose and Scope. Finally, the running order slide has turned up and then coming up next. So all within the hour, lots of excellent stuff to look forward to. Yes. Yeah, we're absolutely delighted to work. We've got two of our guests joining us from Australia. Yeah. It's quite late in the evening. We've got the book. And we have the book. Yeah. As you can see, that's just because it hasn't arrived for me. Somebody has a print copy of it. They do. It's our very fortunate person. Must be just something about, I don't know, if you've asked for something to be sent to the Bodleian Libraries, maybe that's what the thing was. Anyway, right, since we last met, we've entered the fact that we're in a different location. Yes. Yes. So that is what we can see when we're looking at you guys. It's not complicated. There aren't enough railing wires. No, definitely not. No, we need some really hot studio lights, so I start sweating a lot. I think that'd be great. Yeah. Yeah. And we haven't got Pickle the Cat, either, because she's sulking upstairs. Is she? Yeah, right. She'll probably turn up at some point. Yes. Yes. Yes. But that is her earlier on when she was just testing things out, see how it felt to sit on the sofa and join you all this morning. So. Thank you, Wendy. Right. So this is a reminder that there is an archive of all the webinar recordings on our blog, but also on the Alt YouTube channel. There is a special playlist. I shall pop those in the chat right now. So previous ones, and we've had a whole range of excellent speakers. I'm sure many of you are aware of them and we have very pleased to have returning guests as well. So we're on to this next item. OK, copyright news. Copyright news. We've got a couple of items today. We've got a few here. So the first one is that I think we knew this was coming, but this is confirmation that the extension of the copyright term, the length of copyright last in Canada, has increased from 50 years to 70 years after the death of the author. Shall we say boo? Well, I tell you, I think this is something we're probably going to return to as part of the main conversation. So I'm not sure we do need to turn it into a pantomime. OK, we could probably have a more nuanced conversation in a moment. OK, OK, yes. But yes, a major event. Absolutely, yes. Copyright news. Yeah, the next item was that there has been a series of essays published pulled together by Paul Keller and Alec Tarkowski called The Paradox of Open. I started reading one of those last night. That's the one that's all about copyright and the copyright wars. And it's kind of got some what are the unintended consequences of open? What are the things, you know, that the open was trying to do that perhaps it's where it's not succeed? So it's quite a critique, isn't it? I really on this idea of open access, open education, open and everything. Really, really interesting piece, which I'm looking forward to reading more about. I can't say too much more because I haven't read that much of it yet. But yeah, I picked it up earlier in the week and we were discussing it yesterday. Thought it was worth flagging up to people, something to have a look at. So the next item is this webinar on open educational resources happening on the 7th of December and. Yes, the Eden Network, which is a European funded network for people who work in I think primarily in sort of distance education, online learning, but they've got an interest in session. We're seeing an increased interest again in open educational resources. And this is a webinar, our institutional approaches to supporting OER, which is something we're both very interested in. Yeah, yeah, very interesting. I'm having some very interesting conversations with my colleagues at Bobbina Oxford. So I'm definitely going to be shooting into that and seeing what we can, if there's anything we can learn from it. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. There will be. We have the next one, which is a seminar on fair use by a friend of. Yes, so this is webinar and yes, yes, Tom Tomlopinski. He's actually given an in person lecture at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, but it's a hybrid event. And so you are able to to sign up to join on the 13th of December. Just need to check your timings for that. So they've advertised it with the timing in South Africa. I think they are a little bit ahead of us, a bit behind us. Anyway, people can people can get their world time straight down, isn't it? It's not a cross. No, no, no, it's similar time. It is similar. Yeah. So that's 13th of December, and it's going to be looking. He's called it fair use or fair use, fair use. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Looks like an interesting discussion. Absolutely. Jessica said ahead, but we can do this. Other people can work it out. They have access to freely available information source, I believe. Yes, to work out exact timings, depending on where they are. Yes. So we are, I think, on to our main event, aren't we? We are. Yes, again, focusing on this book, the Navigating Copyright for Libraries, which we picked up on some time back because we have a chapter in it. We have chapter 13. We do. But we're also really pleased to have other authors within the book coming and joining us and talking about their chapters and get a picture of how this all meshes together and how this stuff works in practice. Yes, and we are really delighted to actually have one of the editors of the book, Jessica Coates, our friend who's at the National Library of Australia, where she's the senior rights adviser who's going to be joining us. And we'll hear a bit about how the book came about from Jessica. Also really pleased to have Professor Tom Cochran, who's from Queensland University of Technology, who's going to be joining us to talk a bit about his chapter and ongoing interest in copyright and copyright reform. And another another good friend of ours, Stephen Weiber, who is the director for policy and advocacy at IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations. And obviously the book is an IFLA publication. Stephen wrote one of the chapters, particularly looking at WIPO and the work that WIPO has done to lobby and advocate for the rights of libraries when it comes to copyright. So really looking forward to hearing from our very esteemed guests. And we're very delighted that they can join us. So welcome. Welcome one and all. I'll stop sharing the slide so we can see you. Yes, and I think we're going to go to Jessica first if that's OK. So hi, Jessica. We've done a bit of a sound check. We know you we can hear you. And it would it would be great if you could just maybe just say a bit, Chris, he's waving the book around at the moment. He's waving the book at you. So can you tell us a little bit about how the book came to be? Maybe, you know, how it came to recruit all the authors and the process that you used and the fact that this is an open access book. Yeah, essentially, the book was conceived of, I think, all the way back in about 2019, so or even as early as 2018. But basically by Tom Lepinsky, who you mentioned only a few moments ago, not just like him, but the Copyright and Legal Matters Committee of the of IFLA, essentially, Tom was one of the main members. He was a person who took it on to start off with that group decided that it really was important as part of the series, publication series that IFLA has been putting together to have one focused on copyright. It's obviously such a major issue for libraries and archives and everybody. And the committee had a lot of really some top world experts on it. And so they really felt that they could source this and it would be a useful tool. So the conversation started and some planning about how it should be structured, et cetera, all started and we we kicked in, transferred some of the editors a little bit and it about we were just ready to hit about the end of 2019. We were all ready to go and start working on this book. So basically it all luckily was all happening online anyway. And it was a global. It was deliberately global and, you know, that a lot of effort was put into sourcing authors from every continent. Yeah, every type of content, continent, but as much as we could. So we just kept going through. But it did mean that I think that having covered in the lockdowns did make the process much harder. I'm really still in absolute awe of all the authors who were able to continue to produce the chapters and all that kind of thing. We as editors were meeting every few months and then every few weeks at different points and all that kind of thing. And you would get to hear how hard it was for people in all different parts of the world. So I'm still we are so grateful for everybody that they were able to achieve this in such a hard time for so many people. But they did. So essentially the where the authors were sourced from was contacts with the CLM committee and, you know, the library copyright community is pretty connected around the world. A lot of effort, as I said, was put into sourcing people from different parts of the world, but also both legal practitioners, people like me and others who are lawyers working in the field, but also librarians. It was really important to us that we did have, you know, practitioners and academics, so people of all with different perspectives on the copyright and libraries as a thing. So eventually we end up with 20 chapters, which is just amazing that we managed to get quite so much covering everything from the basics of copyright, which me and Tom wrote on primarily all the way through to some of the hottest topics, you know, the latest issues. And that was one of the best things, having a lot of the academics who and people like yourself, sorry, I shouldn't point out that both of you are, of course, authors as well, who were really in the forefront and doing research in the area. So it was really great to have such a broad range of people in the book. But as you said, right from the very start, one of the biggest focus and probably the prime goal that we had for the book was for it to be open access. Yeah, was it comes. It's a natural outflow, really, of the Copyright and Legal Matters Committee. You know, half of the committee are open access advocates. You know, several of us have worked for Creative Commons or we work for, you know, open science organisations and things like that. And of course, librarians, you know, the whole point of having libraries is to try to share knowledge. So it was seems like a very natural fit for it to be trial for if it was first immediately open access publication. And it was really great that if it was really supportive of that, they were able to provide funding to help support the openness and and negotiate with the graders and the graders was very supportive as well. They used as a test as well, because they're going to have to start being more and more open as it goes on. Yeah. And as well as the open access, we were also very, very focused on ensuring that it was also accessible in terms of disability access. So that it comes out in Daisy and all the other forms, not all of them are available yet, but they are very much a thing because, of course, in the same vein, a bunch of the people in the book and in the room worked on Marrakesh Treaty. And so, you know, it just seemed logical that we have to have it open right from the start. Yeah, it's going to be really interesting, isn't it, Jess? I think to see, you know, how many libraries might decide to actually purchase the book in hard copy because they want it on their shelves, how many how many downloads. So as you say, for the Greta, a really interesting you know, experience of publishing an open access book. Yeah, I was going to ask, is there any size it too early to tell what the impact is of publishing it as an open access but also the print, because that's a common common point of debate, isn't it, in the whole open access area? If I make it open access, no one will buy it. And it's getting rid of the idea of the book. I mean, I have to say, actually hold it, I'm going to keep doing this. Actually holding it in my hands makes it's a different experience. And reading through that because, you know, before I arrived, I was reading through things as a PDF on a screen, but it's quite a different experience, isn't it? So in terms of numbers, do you know where you are with this or is it too early to say? I don't yet. I don't know if Stephen knows anything from inside of the headquarters, but we haven't heard anything about the numbers just yet. It is fairly recent. It was only released in August. So and I think that was a formal release. So fingers crossed, I have a fair amount of faith that actually it won't affect sales much and that it will certainly help with, you know, spreading the information. I've already we've already heard about plans for translations of chapters and things like that. So it's really that's the whole point. It's just getting that information out there. Yeah, it's fantastic. And are there any plans, the the options for turning it into a feature film? I'm thinking about what the FAA. We are talking to Spielberg. No, we're not talking to Disney, no, we're not talking to Disney. But you never, you never know. I think the options are always there. No, no, no. Thanks, Jess. So I wanted to ask Tom about if we start that, you know, the three chapters that you've all written, Tom's Yours is a historical account, the foundations of copyright. And takes us through and excellently summarized in in just 14 pages. We have several hundred years of history from the Renaissance period up to the Enlightenment. And I think that's just it's a really good primer because so much as we know those of us that are into history, so much of what happened then informs where we are now. And it explains why we have certain conceptual for the soffical underpinnings of the system that we have. And one of the things that you you refer to is the sort of traditional Anglophone history of copyright. So that focus of the statute of and as the first copyright law, but you pick up some things around other areas of new other ideas that were also around at the time that copyright was developing. So can you talk us through some of that? Yes, yes, sure. Thank you. Like a lot of us, the way I got involved in copyright in the first place was by engaging in issues of our time, particularly the rise of challenges that came with the digital age and the way that some behaviours of some organisations started to change and the need for libraries and kindred organisations to find a way of responding to that. When I came actually to when I got the request to consider doing a chapter, I eventually found it to be an entirely absorbing project. Because the amount of thought that I became aware of that went into the original the drafting of the original statute was very deep. And and the other thing that was also good to be reminded of is that the statute involved the nomination of libraries with a role in the keeping and and and holding of knowledge right at the beginning. So it's not something that came along later. It's provided for in the Statute of Anne in 1709. So the the the chapter just rehearses the issue of why it appears to be an Anglophone orientation, the actual first the first steps that arose as a response to the arrival of printing were actually Venetian and Renaissance Italy. That's not surprising. But the notion of protection was really about the protection of knowhow. It was almost like a precursor to a blend of patent and copyright and wasn't a concept of the author as such. But then neither was it as as it developed over the next 200 years in Tudor and Stewardingwood. So that was really about the role of the station of companies in in a relationship they had with the Crown, which which had outcomes for both. For the Crown, it was the ability to to enroll this private this private group in the control of information, but essentially in censorship. And in turn, the station has got economic protection for their work. And all of that evolved and just going over what what's mostly in the chapter. There, Chris, but all of that evolved into a period which was also where there's quite a bit of change of thinking. And that also corresponds with civil turmoil in England. It's the mid 17th century. The Star Chamber is abolished in 1644. And it had had a role in in some of the the enforcement. And then you have this this particular contribution by John Milton Eropagitico, which is about which is about the importance of authorship. And so by the late by the late 17th century, you have an evolution of thinking to the point where copyright becomes more a concept of property and less a concept of censorship, which, of course, then goes into another form of regulation as time goes by. So the chapter really describes the the main characteristics of of that that that system as it develops. And and then the other interesting thing about looking at it was that the significant legal case in the station is held on after the after the statute. They they kept seeking to assert form of privilege and didn't finally give up until the the the case in 1774. And and it's really interesting to think that that's only two years before the the American rebellion. And as we all know, you can't read about copyright without reading what the founding fathers of the U.S. Constitution thought about it. And so there's this kind of continuity of British looking around. Yes, there were developments in France, especially in the 1780s and 90s. There was there was a lot of unsurprisingly radical thinking. But really, it's the statute of aim that kind of enshrines is thinking of a balance between authorship and the notion of a public good. And so that was the other thing, of course, is that the notion of a public good develops, but is certainly absent at the beginning of what you of the period of the evolution of of copyright. And one other one for sorry. Yeah, one one final thing about the chapter is it it it it became interesting also to consider the arguments proposed by Pamela Samuelson in some of her work about which is just briefly described towards the end of the chapter under the heading Back to the Future, which is that if you look at what the statute of am provided right back at the beginning of this basic beginning, we've seen a steady move away from that in various ways over the next 300 years so that there are certain similarities between what concerned commentators, especially from the library and Kindred organisation point of view, have to have to say about copyright now. And some of the trends that the statute was was more or less addressing with a view to developing balance. And and that that set of characteristics is really interesting to review because although it might sound odd, a lot of the current desire for reform would simply be no more than establish the intent of the original statute. It's I mean, it's a fascinating process. The thing that I'm at the moment, I'm reading The Dawn of Everything by Baber and Wengrove, which is that the account of the sort of prehistory of human civilization and actually looking at that again and saying those stories that we have come to accept and about the way that the Enlightenment came along and the Enlightenment thinkers introduced all these different concepts is actually an incorrect statement of what was happening. And even the parallels aren't necessarily exactly aligned. I think there's a sense in a historical context that we are so sophisticated now. We've got all these sophisticated things. We've worked it out and everybody throughout history was mistaken because they were ignorant, because they don't know what we know now. Whereas actually what happens throughout history is people actually think very deeply and there's a very rich process of discussion and debate about how things work and that if you actually look into prehistory, it's not just that they were they were dumpsters that didn't know anything about computers. They were thinking about the underpinning conceptual things around how you would want a law to regulate creativity and production of it and consumption of it. And we can learn a great deal from that. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's worth remembering that the changes associated with the statute included the notion that the state no longer had a regulatory role in publication, but also that the right to acquire copyright could could be exercised by all persons. So and also, of course, the limitations on the duration of some 14 years renewal once it had to be registered and those those things. But of course, in that clause, the availability of copyright being acquired lay the future for publishers because, of course, that's how it works. So it probably didn't take too long for some of the stationers, which really is a word that's almost interchangeable with publishers by this time to figure figure out, you know, the authors still want dissemination and control of dissemination is with the control of the technology. So absolutely. Yeah, it comes across really clearly. I think the impact that technologies always had on on copyright right from the outset. But I was also I was really interested, Tom, in the part in the chapter where you pick up, I think it was in some of the German states where they didn't actually have any regulation, they didn't have any copyright and it kind of published in Flourish, didn't it? I think. And it's quite an interesting site. That's the theory. Yes, I haven't I haven't seen that rigorously tested. But yes, it was an interesting argument to come across that in 19th century Germany, all of the advancement of science was the greater availability of it in published form. Yeah, very interesting. So if we if we look to where we are now, because it's so just your chapter then picks up so you're handing off in the baton from where Tom's taken us all the way up to the Enlightenment. And then we're now in the period of the modern age and mass communication technology and then copyright just goes and then expands and fills all the gaps. Do you want to talk us through that process? Yes, well, my chapter was probably a bit I feel like it was both less ambitious and more ambitious than Tom's. It was less intellectually ambitious in that the basic right from the start when it was being planned by the CLM group, we all thought it was very important that it also be an educational tool like the that the book could be useful to learn about copyright. And so we had intended that there to always be kind of an early chapter that would just be the basics of copyright. And that's what I set out a copyright primer. That's what I set out to produce a copyright primer that would just basically lay out how it works as much as you can on a global basis with from the perspective of libraries. And with a little bit of, you know, a little bit of angling towards the things that really libraries value and that you hear a lot about a lot in copyright world and at library conferences and things like that. But maybe not in other parts of the copyright world. So importance of public domain and exceptions and things like that. That's what I set out to do and not nearly as intellectually ambitious as Tom's, but of course, in practice, it did turn out to be very ambitious. And, you know, what we were really aiming for was a nice light, you know, five thousand word primer. And what we ended up with a ten thousand word kind of tone, because once you want to really try to cover ensure that you're capturing civil law a bit, a bit. I don't I'm not nearly as big an expert on civil law. So I feel a little bit bad, but it might have been neglected. But civil law as well as the common law and making sure that you do cover at least touch on important issues like why do we have exceptions and what is their role? Though there are a whole other chapters that also deal with that. Yeah, it just became and the importance of things like human rights. That was picked up by one of the reviewers, a few reviewers that I hadn't really built that in. And that's very important in large parts of the world, like Latin America, in the formation of copyright. So we had to include that, yes. So because I'm not sure it is the light, you know, easy primer that I had always intended it to be. Well, I think you want to find out about copyright. I would say that it's it's I think there's there's only so light. I think you can make copyright. If you wanted to actually have any use in any substance. And I think what you've done with your chapter is you've got it as a historical narrative. So it does pick up that. So it's kind of easy to follow from that perspective. It is also stating the facts about how copyright law works, but because it's not just doing it in bullet point list, because it's got that narrative structure. But but also because it does have some kind of conceptual frameworks where you're not just presenting the law as it is, but saying, well, certain laws fit into these sorts of categories. So I mean, I think it's it's a real achievement that you've put it all together. And I think it really is that excellent primer of kind of where we are now and how we got here from the dawn of copyright law itself. Absolutely. It's really important because some people coming to the book were of course already going to be massive experts in this field. But other people were not. And in order to understand a bunch of the later chapters, you do really need the kind of foundations that Tom and my chapter both put together to help you understand why some of these issues are complicated and why people are debating them and that kind of thing. So yeah, we did think it was very important to at least have it there. I am quite keen on the idea. And I think CLM has genuinely talked about this about editing it. It is open access. After all, everybody else should feel free to try to create a lighter version. Like, you know, just try to pull out the higher one, especially, you know, once you've written something once, it's always much easy to make it short of the second time. Yeah, I think it was a noble version. Tom, yes, you want to come in? Yeah. I think if there was a basic, there's a basic message, you know, from beginning as you play through, it is that once the principles are established, all of the argument and tension has been where the balance should be. So the principle of the public good, you know, the advancement of learning to use the language of the time on the one side and due recognition to the author on the other was all it was. And what happens is the author actually gradually turns into the publisher more and more until that's enormous industry. And then that compounded with the arrival of new technologies. The other interesting thing about this is it's an error to think that we live in, you know, in our lifetimes in the age of the rapid arrival of new technologies. They actually arrived with great speed in the second half of the 19th century. And that's what and that's what started to attract. A lot of attention. So that then had the effect of moving the balance as well. That's definitely been one was definitely one of my messages all the way through that. In many way, like most copyright reform for centuries has been a response to technology and the reason why the last 20 years has been so hard is because of there's been such technological change. Like it's it is it's a real challenge to people from both sides. And libraries really do that balance is so crucial to concept of copyright. To me, balance is really the core principle of copyright. And libraries sit at that point of balance. Like, yes, we both, as Tom said, we were very, very keen on sharing knowledge. That's, you know, always been really a very strong focus of me. But we are also very, very keen on books and authors want the industry to continue. Yeah, I think the point on technology when when you think about it is, yes, lots of change arrived in the late 90th century. But what's different about now is how many millions of hands technological capability sits in. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. This seems like a really good point, though, with you talking about, you know, the the role of libraries. I think we should bring Stephen in who wrote his chapter looking also looking specifically at WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, looking at the the advocacy work that's been done at WIPO. And you've you've actually been there, Stephen, haven't you as well? So you've attended the the the committee meetings related to copyright. What's it actually like going into WIPO, Stephen, being the voice of the champion for libraries? Oh, well, I said I apologize right now. For some reason, it seems that my video keeps on getting turned off. So my computer obviously isn't playing ball with the screen. So I apologize. Oh, we'll see you a moment ago. Less exciting visual experience than it might have been, especially because I've got exciting curtains going on behind me. Yes. Yeah. It probably loses its magic quite a lot. I think. I think what one of the interesting things you see at WIPO is that there's two aspects to the WIPO work, which I think make it interesting or mean that it provides a certain sort of angle on how we do copyright. I think part of it is the fact that the nature of the place you have relatively short meetings, it's rare to say that a meeting that lasts a week is short, but compared to an ongoing legislative process that involves consultations and round-the-meetings and so on, a week is a short period of time, a two or three minute intervention is a short period of time. And so you tend to get quite a sort of condensed way of looking at things. And I think that sometimes this can lead it to be a little bit of a punch and duty show where people stick to their high-level principle and it turns into sort of Thomas Quyner's sort of and 13th century theology about how we should see copyright and how we should interpret it one way or the other. That's not to say that it isn't a place where things can't get done. And the Marrakesh Treaty is a fantastic example of when the setting is written, I think in particular when the cost of inaction becomes greater than the cost of action. Actually, things really start moving. And I think it's aided in some ways and which brings me on to the second point. It's aided in some ways by the nature of the place. And that's contradictory because it is, to some extent, like any intellectual property office or intellectual property organization, it is at risk of capture. And that's just a fact. If you are focused on just like an agricultural ministry, we'll tend to be extremely well connected with farmers, or the farmers or a business ministry will be extremely well connected with business. Logically, an IP office, an IP organization will be extremely well connected with rights holders, which brings its own sort of world view with it. And so there is a sense that we have IP in the title. It feels contradictory. It can feel odd to be sort of questioning IP and suggesting that we have IP. Does that mean that we should have limits also? At the same time, what's really interesting in Geneva is that a lot of the people who are there are dealing with other parts of the UN system. And so their day job is to look across the development agenda. And they're also dealing with aid. They're dealing with health. They're dealing with education. They're dealing with the way the internet works. They're dealing with a lot of these broader questions. And that actually can open up some interesting angles, because you actually have people coming along there who, by their nature and professionally, they are supposed to see things in context. And it sort of comes back to these sort of questions about what is IP for. But it allows you to just like blow things open, because in the end, these are people who are seeing IP as being one tool in the toolkit. And it's the question for them, is this the tool that actually allows us to achieve the goal or not? And in what way do we use the tool in order to achieve the goal? So it means you get some interesting discussions. You get just a full-on IP purists that more IP must be good, because it's in our name. But you also get a lot of people there who actually are development people and they're thinking not how can we get more IP, but more how can we make IP work for us and work to actually to help us achieve our goals. And it's all to say it's complicated. It's a mix of complicated and oversimplified, but you get a really interesting insight. And it is a place where things can get done. I mean, it's a fascinating insight, because I think those of us looking at that legislative process and the international advocacy more from the outside, I get you mentioned Marrakesh a great success, but otherwise it seems like there's a certain amount of stalemate. We talk about the broadcast treaty that's been going for decades and not really got anywhere. And then I guess how easy is it for actually libraries to get their voice heard? I know that the Standing Committee on Copyrights and Related Rights was only relatively recently set up and only relatively recently libraries really able to input into that. So it sounds like it is a place where even though we don't, you know, can be quite frustrating, you're saying that it is a place where we can get some successes. So I think a key thing and this is something that comes out in the chapter is that there are different things that can get done when you're there. First of all, obviously legal instruments are lovely and it is absolutely the case that if a wiper comes up with a treaty or something like that, then that provides a trigger, it provides a stimulus for governments to do things in a way that tragically enough copyright is not everyone's number one priority. If you are a small government with limited capacity or maybe not going to make copyright the thing you deal with first of all and so actually having a trigger from above, from on high in order to actually look at it is helpful. Clearly also wipers the organisation that can actually provide a sensible option, a scientific solution for looking across borders. But there are other things that we do that you can do there. I think we've seen some really interesting work and especially I can see that Ross is on the call here. The Arcadia Fund has been supporting some work led by the American University in Washington to increase engagement. And actually one of the really interesting things we've seen about that is actually this and working through WIPO has opened up is to go and talk directly with national policymakers and use the proximity, use the lack of barriers that a place like WIPO offers. You don't have to go through five layers of secretaries and undersecretaries and oversecretaries and sideways secretaries and whatever in order to reach the decision maker. You can just go and talk to them immediately, hook up, get an agreement, get a session or a meeting in the diary and actually start reaching out through there. So there's an opportunity to use a place like WIPO also to shape the way that people think, to seed ideas, to get people sort of reflecting and obviously that's not got the same, it's not got the same sort of immediacy and more obvious causality that a treaty has with change but it opens doors, it makes things possible that may not otherwise be easily done. I say one thing I've picked up, just to come to say that one of the things that I think the library sector gets kind of fobbed off with isn't it by not having the legislation, by having this kind of model or soft law and these sort of frameworks which are sort of a watered down thing that allows us not to get what we want but it sounds like there is the value, not necessarily that, you know, those are preferable clearly to having those other triggers but there is a value in getting some of those conversations happening. Jessica, I'll go to you on that. Well that's actually, I was about to say it's a perfect segue to saying that honestly, advocacy was a not so secret goal of the book right from the start. I mean, I think you two build this into your work as well but CLM was very clear right from the start that we wanted the book to help people understand copyright and librarians understand copyright and what's going on at the moment but also to be able to advocate in the space and you really, people need a basic understanding of the law but they also need to hear what other people have, what are the arguments in favour of the importance of exceptions? What is happening at WIPO? I mean, I think Stephen's chapter is a fairly extreme example because most of the people reading the book won't be at WIPO but by hearing what debates going on and by hearing, you know, sort of the arguments being put forward by some of the top thinkers in the world and case studies such as there's a whole chapter talking about the experience of South Africa which is so close to being a successor we're still hoping that it will be a successor or it's just on a knife edge in terms of reform but yeah, the book was deliberately designed to include this advocacy element and to encourage librarians and anybody else in the space to really think about how, you know, they can change their own local laws to better themselves and their, you know, community. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think Stephen, coming back to you, you mentioned Ross is on the call today. You mentioned Arcadia and clearly if they're heavily involved in the Knowledge Rights 21 project to increase capacity throughout Europe and so presumably this work or chapter of the book is kind of integral part of that project as well. Absolutely. And I think this feed is now bouncing off of Jessica's point then. Certainly it's a support we're really grateful for because it opens up possibilities to try and I think maybe combat some of the, what we were saying right at the beginning about well, you have to get through, there's a minimum number of pages of reading you need to get through before you get involved in copyright advocacy. I don't know, it shouldn't be necessarily like swimming badges. What we need to do is we need to work in the direction of giving people the skills, the confidence not just to see copyright as something that's been handed down from above that sort of written on stone and brought down from Mount Sinai into the desert but as something that is malleable, that is something that we can actually go out and change and that not only can we do it because we're voters and we're stakeholders who have a legitimate thing to say because we are doing something that is a public value activity but also because actually we should do it because right now we are being held back we are being restricted by laws that haven't kept up with kept up with the times and if we believe in the value of access to education, research, culture if we believe in the value of access to information we need to be trying to change not just through our own factors but we need to be changing what other people are doing in order to facilitate this and helps in that direction by providing a reference, providing a source and we're really looking to build on that in order to actually turn understanding into agency Yeah, I think one of the threads I picked up running through your three chapters is also this idea that kind of came about that I know Professor Ronan Deasley was always very critical of this idea that copyright was a human right and you know I know it's about balance isn't it it's about the balance in the right of the author we can see you Steven with the right to access to information which surely is a more fundamental human right I think also some of what you're hinting at Steven and I know we talked about this a little bit at the Ice Pops Conference in September in Oxford but it's this sort of notion of what Chris and I and I think you also started to call critical copyright literacy and whether the book's playing a role in kind of really as you say encouraging people to start to question copyright more rather than just saying I've got to learn about it and how it works I've got some agency haven't I one of the characteristics of people coming whose working lives have to grapple with copyright in the way that librarians do is that it seems bewilderingly arcane and people tend to take a risk averse approach to thinking about solutions to access issues so anything that could be done to encourage people away from that risk aversity and to even see copyright and advice on it as being a risk management process where you apply some reasonable judgment to depending on the jurisdiction you're working into the advice that can be given to people about how to improve how to improve access generally I mean so a work like this book kind of explains how the convoluted developments have come into play over a long period but the back of it still is this notion when you strip it all away it's not really that complicated it's about this balance between the right of creators etc and access and being wise to the fact that as in all periods of history those who have the ability to gain economically through influencing legal instruments and developing new forms of rights will do that and that challenge needs to be met by those who are keeping an eye on the main game which is how society as in total is to move forward in a reasonable way absolutely and I think as going back to your chat Tom as you said when you're talking us through it the fact that libraries were so heavily involved have always been heavily involved in this discussion and in fact predate the history of copyright means that it's absolutely essential that they're in the mix and I think that this book in the way it lays out the issues allows us to continue that work to sort of situate it and try to influence that balance in the right way and because they've always been about access they necessarily have agency and to remind people that this is a space that libraries really have always been in and that we do have a role and you know we should be proud of the role that we have and we should not be afraid to push for change when we need to in the modern debates often any argument in favour of open access is dismissed as being sort of linked to giant multinational corporations and benefit bail gains and it's very easy to forget that libraries were always there we were always there and we always will be and we as librarians should be proud of that absolutely I think we're kind of coming to the end of our time so what I wanted to do is ask each of you in turn about whether you're hopeful for the future we see that there are challenges we've seen for example in our news we've got the Canadian copyright term extension which against all evidence there shows that it's overwhelmingly a problem to have longer and stronger copyright in that way but that's the way things move the challenge there is of getting the library voice in there other newer sexier topics like AI and copyright come up but we still actually got the fundamental basic things around access to information so I'll start with Tom are you hopeful for the future where we are in the profession of whether we can advocate or are we really on the precipice of quite a dangerous period I think I'd say I have a cautious and sort of moderated optimism but I mean the good things that happened I think have included the establishment of more thoughtful and skilled advocacy and organisational relationships which are really about trying to defend and provide access against that is this pattern of governments thinking here of the Australian government but I'm sure this is more widespread have a tendency to be presented with a complex problem send it off for review to a panel of experts and with extraordinary expertise get some answers back and then fall victim to very heavy lobbying by interest groups that have got a lot of sway and a lot of money and then decided it's too hard to go ahead with legislation and then do the whole thing again 10 years later and that that's a depressing cycle it's not just confined to copyright law reform in Australia it's particularly true also of tax law reform but I think we're familiar with that and so there's an issue about how healthy government is in terms of act of doing what's right rather than swaying with the greatest influences and lobbyists of the moment yeah we saw this at the create conference a month or so ago where they were looking at evidence based copyright policymaking and the evidence shows lots and lots of things but you know a very interesting debate is it even worth trying to do empirical evidence on copyright given that everyone ignores it when they go through that process yeah what about Steven are you hopeful for the future Steven? you're always a positive person can we get that camera back on I can try but normally the camera will give you rather than some grinning confused faces this may last for a few seconds there you are okay it's gone balance of economist type answer there's a difference to both sides Canada not great news but I'll give you that because they wanted to sell beef and lumber in order to be able to take part we sold copyrights of beef well Canada sold copyrights of beef or whatever at the same time Mickey Mouse is in the public domain and Disney Corporation didn't try and extend copyrights even further so there's positives and negatives in that one I think we are beginning to understand that copyright really is one side of the same coin as lively funding and that there's growing awareness of what's going on and that people are looking at that I think maybe in order to succeed we might need to start thinking about being a little bit more hard-nosed it's pretty clear that those are against copyright in the form of working to the same playbook every time it's a very sort of claim that you represent authors claim it will be the end of the world exploit the fact that you have access to communications channels to do things threaten legal action claim it's unconstitutional there's a pretty standard playbook that gets followed in these situations and we've seen that it backfires in Germany this is slightly hysterical full-page adverts that were taken out by some light-holders really backfired they annoyed the government no end so sometimes the right-holders go too far they'll do something that Thomas Keneally swearing there's probably a great argument for copyright reform because it just underlined the lack of rationality on the other side of the debate I think the one thing I'm slightly scared of is that there's such a risk of copyrights being privatised by shifting across to licensing and I think that's something we do need to look at because actually almost debates about the shape of copyright law itself risk becoming entirely moot if everything can just be overtaken by licenses and so that's something we pay attention to and without looking like we are, we'd like to go back to only paper and reject licenses as a concept we do need to be able to engage in that debate and make sure that people aren't forgetting that well unless you bear in mind licenses and services then I think this is sterile Jessica, one minute for you are you hopeful? Well the good news is I am a natural author so maybe a nice one to finish on I do think I do agree with Stephen about the privatisation that's concerning but I do also think that in the 20 years or so that I've been in the field we've seen a lot of progress and if you just think about your average people and common sense how much more comfortable people are with access and how much people assume access so whether it's in museums who 20 years ago were saying we can't possibly let the teenagers near our treasured items but now have great websites and putting everything in the public domain up online or you're talking about your average kids who just can't conceive of not being able to make use of video clips when they're communicating with each other and stuff like that I do think that the world and the open access movement like Creative Commons and stuff the world is moving really appreciating access to knowledge a lot more and I think that's a really good movement so I think if that keeps happening then it's inevitable that copyright will slowly move. The thing is it doesn't move fast but luckily as again in the library sector we have a lot of patients we don't move fast we can just keep hanging on and we should be able to see the changes that we need Thank you What a great note to end on thank you so much all three of you for coming and joining us it really is a privilege to be asked to contribute to the book but also to have you talk it's just been really great and I think congratulations it's time for Jessica and Tom definitely to have a glass of something fizzy nice cup of cocoa yes definitely but thank you so much for joining us we really do appreciate it and we well we'll be in touch I think and continue to share the publication of this book and your fantastic work so thank you I'm just going to jump in to not only share it but to remix it and share it around and remember just for free right now anybody who wants to read anything just grab it now and do things with it let's have a hackathon a festival of creative re-use absolutely absolutely we've just got a minute or so less than that so just future webinars we have been putting together a schedule for our 2023 webinars and we've got some dates lined up we're just lining up speakers as well but we do hope you'll join us in two weeks time for our Christmas festive fun it may have a small theme related to copyright but I think it's going to be much more on the fun side isn't it Chris we'll see it's going to be good yes absolutely but we are going to return to the topic of the navigating copyright book as a special treat for the day before my birthday then you permitted me to read I think from our chapter I don't think that's not quite the format so we're working out the details but the plan is to get somebody else to interview us about our chapter but I think we will be able to reflect on that in the context of this fascinating conversation and what we were saying and how all those things come together so all those speakers TBC we've got a few names people say that they will talk about the CLA license requirements that the sector needs use this format for getting everybody to input into it so we'll be in touch with more information about that with our CNET cats on we will yes excellent so again thank you so much and I know this is now the time isn't it for everyone to leave the one last thing should I play the one last thing it's Christmas we need a little bit of that here's the one last thing Jingle it does a bit doesn't it it's probably why everyone leaves I think so yes okay so that is the one last thing is that we've been watching the playlist on Netflix the fictionalised account for copyright nerds if you want something on Netflix that's got lots of discussion about the copyright wars this is the one for you however accurate it may or may not be it's a bit like the crown isn't it yes it does actually go into the future as well you haven't got to the end and I'll tell you what happened because of my background in music licensing when I watched it I suddenly found myself flashed back to the you know the mid-2000s he was traumatised he was traumatised the part where they go into stim and they have that conversation with the the licensing person I mean it wasn't quite like that but it wasn't entirely unworkable it was my life I'm going to change the world we're going to make a dreaming platform we're going to make everything otherwise you wouldn't be sitting in this space with me okay so thank you so much