April 26th 2020 was World Intellectual Property day. This day was chosen because it is the date on which the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPOI) entered into force in 1970.
Interestingly, it was the Chinese delegation to WIPO that proposed the adoption of the “World Intellectual Property Day”! This year the theme is Innovate for a Green Future. In the light of the Coronavirus we might want to re-state this as Innovate for a Digital Future.
Each day we are drawn to the realisation that the Covid-19 pandemic will require us to examine afresh what we do and how we do it. The impact on our various systems and services in both libraries and archives is likely to be significant. The learned bodies and institutions that support and help to develop the professions and services have postponed gatherings until October in the case of the SLA but may have to look to 2021 before such conference attendance can occur. It seems inevitable that social distancing will be applied for many months to come as countries keep borders closed and travel restrictions continue.
Digital Ready Libraries & Archives
Libraries and archives across the world are closing premises and transferring access to materials online for remote access. But this is only where copyright laws allow it to happen.
Access to resources in libraries will increasingly call upon the need for data and knowledge to be in digital formats. This has great implications for system delivery and how libraries can share information while at the same time protect the intellectual property of the rights-holder.
In 2012 we began exploring the use of DRM controls following a project funded by the EU to manage digital assets. At that time images were the primary resource using specialist encryption tools to embed ownership and rights data into pixels within the image.
Today we integrate ACS (Adobe Content Server) tools into our solutions to create a wrapper around PDFs and eBooks to protect and confirm specific rights on the use of an item. These are not explicitly announced to the user. Greater attention will be needed in the future to preserve details such as the origin of a digital asset, much like a book plate asserting the rights and ownership of a piece of work, digital content will need something similar.
Take control and distribute your own PDFs and eBooks securely to mobile devices, tablets or desktop computers with SoutronSDS, our easy to use Cloud-based software platform. Learn more about SoutronSDS today.
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Graham Beastall – Senior Consultant and Managing Director. Graham’s background is in Accountancy, Public Administration, Organizational Theory and Library Technologies with a deep technical understanding of databases and web technologies. More posts by Graham.
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