There is huge value in the curation and the discovery of important information. And there’s a gap in terms of how that is then turned into a commercial model.

Mark SeeleyIn a media-obsessed society such as ours, individual citizens and global businesses alike thrive on information. The digital environment largely satisfies this craving by providing access to online content in nearly unlimited quantity and often undetermined quality.

Our insatiable hunger for content naturally oppose any limits to access, whether they are technological or legal. Ever faster download speeds help to overcome the former, of course. Yet legal challenges persist as copyright-holders defend their rights. Is the conflict between technology and rights an absolute and inevitable one? Or is there a middle path that allows for a pro-digital and pro-copyright world?

“There is huge value in the curation and the discovery of important information,” says Mark Seeley, General Counsel for Elsevier, the leading global publisher and analytics provider for the scientific research and health markets. “And there’s a gap in terms of how that is then turned into a commercial model.

“Those players in the industry that are responsible and mature will think about these issues and will try to come up with good solutions,” Seeley tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “What we do see is a beginning of some movement and some decisions by organizations such as Google, to be more responsible, to be more mature – to support, for example, journalism in the context of the news media issues.”

At Elsevier, Mark Seeley leads a global team of lawyers and others at the intersection of IP, technology and collaboration. He is a frequent speaker on copyright and publishing ethics issues. Last week in London he gave the closing keynote address on the future of copyright at the STM-sponsored Innovations Seminar.

Digital Copyright

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