IP rights and their importance in the creative industries.

IP rights and their importance in the creative industries.

What is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property is any form of original creation that can be bought or sold, be that inventions, literary, art work, design, symbols, names and images used in commerce, it is an asset like a car or a house, it need to be protected from unauthorised use. Types of intellectual property protection includes copyrights, design rights, patents, trademarks and registered design.

Types of Intellectual Property Protection 

Creative industries core relays on art and technology, the professionals in the creative industries produce innovative creation, they create intellectual property products such as music, films, games, designs and even logos they are all need some protection as they are considered an asset with a market value that could be exploited by unauthorised users or competitors.

Does it stifle creativity in the creative industries?

It is important for the inventor to protect their invention considering the cost of inventing it.

And that is exactly the case with patents, it gives the inventors years of exclusively managing their invention to cover the cost and make some profit out of their product before it enters the public domain.

But is this always the case?

Does IP law restrict competition and creativity?

Sometimes patent protection can be excessive and could affect creativity, a live example could be the patents war between Apple and Samsung. Such misuse of the intellectual property laws allowed the appearance of what is called patent trolls, who get patents with the goal of suing those who violate them.

The importance of IP for web development:

In the UK copyright vests automatically in a work that is original it doesn’t have to be unique, it must not be copied but must be created as a result of some skill, labour and judgement, and it should be recorded in writing or otherwise, which can also include a computer memory.

Therefor any original content such as design, code, logo, text and images that are included in a website are automatically copyrighted.

If the web developer is not the owner of any material that are used in a website, they have to obtain a license from a copyright owner to use, alter and include these material into the website.

If a web developer created a work for his employer, the copyright of that work belongs to the employer, copyright ownership must be agreed regarding work that is made by contractors as it would normally belongs to the contractors’ not the client.