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A voice for Intellectual Property: the Alliance for IP

British IP Day was first established by the Alliance for IP to celebrate the huge contribution that Intellectual Property (IP) makes to the UK, both culturally and economically. Dan Guthrie, Director General at the Alliance for IP, shares his insights on the essential role of IP in the UK’s creative industries ahead of this week’s British IP Day.

While creativity, passion, and artistic endeavor are what drive our sector, IP is what enables us to make some money from that work and ensures we can control the use of our endeavors.

Dan Guthrie

The Alliance for Intellectual Property has been campaigning to ensure the UK values Intellectual Property rights for over 25 years. Our mission is to establish a strong legislative and regulatory framework that safeguards innovation and creativity, along with effective mechanisms to enforce these protections. We now have over 23 representative bodies as members, representing sectors that are vital to our economy and society including publishing, image, design, news media, retailing, audiovisual, visual arts, music, toy and games, business software, and more.

The role of IP and advocacy efforts

DACS has been a member of the Alliance for many years and serves as one of our four Officers. Over my last five years as Director General, and as a consultant to the organisation for the previous 15 years, I can bear testament to the huge contribution they bring to the Alliance table and their unswerving passion for representing the rights of visual artists.

IP, and copyright, in particular, is vital for our creators and creative industries. While creativity, passion, and artistic endeavor drive our sector, IP is what enables us to make some money from that work and ensures we can control the use of our endeavors.

Impact of the Creative Industries on the UK Economy

The Government estimates that the value of the creative industries in 2022 was £126bn, 12% higher in real terms than in 2019. That is an enormous contribution to the economic life of the UK without even considering the joy that creativity brings to the public, its health benefits, learning and the rich tapestry it provides to the country, and the soft power the UK brings across the world.

We need to ensure that AI developers respect the rights of creators and human creativity remains at the core of copyright, whilst also ensuring the power of AI as a tool in assisting that human creativity is exploited.

Dan Guthrie

A Strong Framework and Ongoing Policy Influence

The UK has an enviable copyright framework internationally, the strength and stability of which is often cited as a key basis for inward investment. Similarly, the UK court system is seen as hugely valuable in arbitration in IP cases. The digital phenomenon of the last 25 years has clearly brought many new challenges in tackling piracy, and while business models and licensing have had to adapt, it’s a testament to the strength of the UK legislative framework that copyright has been flexible enough to accommodate digital challenges without having to revolutionise.

Since its inception, the Alliance has sought to influence these debates. We successfully campaigned to ensure penalties for digital piracy were equal to those in the physical world. We fought off challenges that sought to bring US approaches to the use of copyright to the UK and provided for new mechanisms to use court orders to enable internet service providers to block access to pirate sites. We also campaigned to introduce new regulation to prevent advertising on pirate sites and helped create a central enforcement body in the Police and Intellectual Property Crime Unit, based in the City of London Police. We have also ensured that IP is at the core of the Government’s creative industries strategy and broader industrial strategy, given both its domestic size but also the enormous exports it provides.

Strength in Diversity and Unity

The Alliance’s voice is made stronger because of both the diverse range of industries we represent and also because our members represent both businesses and creators. In the creative sector in particular, there is a huge interdependence between the creativity of the individual and the finance and distribution that businesses bring. Uniting those voices under the umbrella of the Alliance enables us to motivate policymakers in a way that others can’t and makes our lobbying voice more powerful as a result.

The UK Government should be seeking ways to reduce the uncertainty or those livelihoods and improving the income they generate – in supporting copyright and broader IP rights

Dan Guthrie

Brexit, Trade Negotiations, and Future Challenges

Brexit gave the UK the power to negotiate our own trade agreements. With most creative industries being tariff free, at least in the digital environment, the opportunity to use these trade negotiations to improve IP protection in those countries with which we are negotiating is significant. Those negotiations include the opportunity to promote the Artist Resale Right which, without an international treaty, is the only means to enshrine this hugely important right in third countries. Through those negotiations, British artists will now benefit when their art is resold in both Australia and New Zealand, and the Government has made numerous commitments to prioritise the issue in other negotiations.

Each new era brings about new opportunities but also challenges. Under this new Parliament, we have new Ministers and hundreds of new MPs to convince of the importance of IP.

A vital issue in the years ahead is the interaction between AI and the copyright framework. We need to ensure that AI developers respect the rights of creators and human creativity remains at the core of copyright, whilst also ensuring the power of AI as a tool in assisting that human creativity is exploited. In these circumstances, there are often calls to review the whole copyright framework and to reduce copyright protection. History suggests that isn’t necessary and while some regulatory changes might be required, for example, to ensure there is transparency of the works ingested by AI developers or some codification of image and personality rights, there is no need to fundamentally change what has been a constant and flexible IP framework.

Protecting IP for the Future

Our view is that the UK Government should look at our IP framework with pride given its role in underpinning the flourishing creative industries and weaken it at its peril. Many artists live an uncertain economic life and their contribution can be easily underestimated by policymakers. The UK Government should be seeking ways to reduce the uncertainty or those livelihoods and improving the income they generate – in supporting copyright and broader IP rights, that is exactly what they can and should do.

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