International Copyright Institute (2014)
Contemporary Issues in Collective Copyright Management for Developing Countries and Countries with Economies in Transition


Participants in the May 2014 International Copyright Institute in the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. Photo by David Rice

The United States Copyright Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) co-hosted a symposium in Washington, D.C. entitled “Contemporary Issues in Collective Copyright Management for Developing Countries and Countries with Economies in Transition” during May 12-16, 2014. This week-long training event brought together senior-level copyright officials and collective management specialists from fourteen countries to hear from more than fifty government, private industry, and civil society experts on a range of emerging issues in copyright law and policy with regard to collective management, including: efficient licensing mechanisms in the global digital environment, mass digitization, enforcement challenges, and the importance of transparency, accountability and good governance.


Highlights of this biennial program included a keynote speech by Register of Copyrights Maria A. Pallante as well as presentations via videoconference from Maria Martin-Prat, Head of the Copyright Unit at the European Commission, and Nadia Vally, Head of Collective Rights Management at the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office. Participants learned about multi-territorial licensing, extended collective licensing, and various other types of licensing models for specific genres of copyrighted content. They also heard from a wide range of industry experts about current trends and developments in copyright licensing models.


The following countries were represented at the symposium either by government officials or by collective management organization officers, or both:


Albania Argentina Botswana China Indonesia Jamaica Lebanon
Malaysia Mauritius The Philippines South Africa Sri Lanka Vietnam Zambia

The agenda for the program can be found here.