Intellectual Property Protection in a Digital World
Jinfo Blog

By Anja Chemnitz Thygesen

Abstract

Co-producer of the the FreePint Topic Series "All About Usage - From Content Sharing to Data Mining", Anja Thygesen, reflects on the latest FreePint reports and articles in the series and how they shed light on the complex subject of protecting intellectual property.

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We are approaching the end of our FreePint Topic Series "All About Usage - From Content Sharing to Data Mining". This series has covered a variety of very interesting issues from the validity of information to different tools for handling everyday usage.

One of the subjects I have found extremely interesting is the copyright and protection of intellectual property, which is an area for debate and insight that never runs out of fashion. This has been covered throughout our series from different perspectives.

• Digital content expert Martin Murtland introduces and discusses intellectual property protection in his article "An Introduction to Digital Rights Management  (DRM)". Martin presents a hands-on introduction to the tools which are used to reduce the piracy of electronic media and maintain the confidentiality of enterprise documents.
  
  DRM is used to help publishers or creators of electronic media receive money for their products and limit the sharing or redistribution of copyrighted material. By using DRM a publisher may reduce the violation of intellectual property but it comes at a cost, as using DRM can be irritating to the end user in a number of ways.
  
  
• The DRM article is an excellent supplement to earlier articles such as "Respecting the Ownership of Knowledge" by Irene Koren in which she points out that copying intellectual property may in fact be the same as stealing.
  
  
• Another interesting article dealing with this from yet another angle is "How Much Will it Cost to Use Someone Else's Copyright Content?" by Clare Painter, which provides readers with useful and easily applicable ways to comply with copyright. As information professionals it is our duty to be aware of these and also to guide our customers (internal or external) to live up to these, which Clare makes feasible by pointing out the tools and tricks to do it, who to consult and how to approach rightsholders.

All in all our "All About Usage" series offers plenty of food for thought when it comes to IP protection, a topic which is not easy to grasp but our contributors help lead the way. Visit the Topic Page to view all the content published to date - or to register for the series, including the end-of-series index report. 

Articles and reviews published since the most recent blog update in the Topic Series "All About Usage": 

• Q&A with Key Note - Market Research Reports from Industry Experts
• Product Review of RefME (Introduction; Value; Contact Details)
• An Introduction to Digital Rights Management (DRM)
• Product Review of EndNote 
• Content Management Tools That Really Can Deliver 

Webinars

• Recommit to Risk Management: A Strategic Value Information Practitioners Can Deliver - 8th October 2015

Communities of Practice

• Understanding Usage - Buyers and Sellers Seeking Alignment - 20th October 2015 (New York) or 3rd November 2015 (London)

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