D’Art report 3: Copyright Management Systems

D’Art Topics in Arts Policy, no. 3, March 2002

IFACCA and Professor Margaret Wyszomirski

The D’Art process was used by Professor Margaret Wyszomirski to uncover information for a paper that was presented to the American assembly for the Arts. Professor Wyszomirski’s paper reviews copyright agencies and systems in the USA, Australia, the UK, Ireland, Canada, and internationally. Wyszomirski finds that the digital era has increased both the complexity of and the necessity for effective rights management. The paper explores three main elements in rights management: type of right(s) involved; legal and/or technical devices employed; range of management tasks; and scope of administration in rights management. The paper discusses four significant dimensions of change in rights management:

the expanding scope of the rights management task

the growing number and complexity of rights management organizations

increasing public policy attention to and impact upon the processes and administrators of rights management

the difficulty of identifying and locating rights owners in order to facilitate effective rights management.

The paper finds that there is no central clearinghouse, directory or index where a potential user can obtain information on ownership or authorized usage of intellectual property. The adhocracy characterized by current copyright management systems contributes to business, legal, and access problems. Until recently, the ability to solve these problems seemed both unfeasible and unworkable. The paper concludes, however, that in the very near future technology may present new solutions.