MIPTV 2009 – CANNES. Is Creative Commons the answer in a changing world of digital distribution? “There is a shift in philosphy of intellectual property rights,” Ingrid Silver, partner Denton Wilde Sapte LLC, told the audience during a session on copyright.
“Creative Commons is a mechanism to make those rights more freely available. It is more focused on making rights fairly free and sharing those. At the moment 80% of internet traffic is peer-to-peer and a significant proportion is illegal. But people are willing to pay and make it legal if it is priced right.”
Referring to illegal downroads Donatella Della Ratta of Creative Commons said: “if all people are doing it, you can’t put all people in jail. Or in the words of Jack Valent, former chairman of the MPAA, ‘we have to fight our own kids, because they are the terrorists.'”
“Creative Commons is the answer to this social shift. Copyright is rhinestone of this industry, but the way we use this industry is changing. Creative Commons is copyright for the new digital media; it is still copyright, but it is a softer copyright.”
She cited as an example the Al Jazeera Repository of video reports. “They offer a lot of quality footage in high resolution and broadcast quality. You can view clip on the web in low res, then you can download in high res. Then you can edit it, translate it and even broadcast it – the only condition is that you quote the source, Al Jazeera.”