Innovation Asset Blog

WIPO conference addresses digital copyright issues

During last week's World Intellectual Property Office meeting, government, industry and academic leaders shared their insights on the ways copyright infrastructure will need to adapt in the digital age.

According to Intellectual Property Watch, a dominant theme of the discussion was how copyright regulations are affecting online business models.

"In the internet world, we should be able to support multiple, different business models," said Chinese music distribution innovator Jun Wu. "However, we need to have an infrastructure to facilitate that."

The panelist went on to highlight a growing revenue disparity in his industry that has resulted from the current intellectual property infrastructure. According to the news source, last year the Chinese music industry was only able to garner $40 million of an estimated $2.7 billion in revenue generated from domestic digital music consumption.

According to the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development, a number of panelists were also interested in reducing barriers that prevent open, global access to knowledge. However, one official from the Max-Planck Institute for Intellectual Property raised the issue of promoting open information exchanges within indigenous cultures that are traditionally opposed to such practices.

Peter Ackerman

Peter Ackerman

Founder & CEO, Innovation Asset Group, Inc.