Quite naturally, creative practitioners are concerned with protecting their intellectual property (IP) – developing and delivering new and original ideas is how they make their living.  In the UK, traditional law focusses on prevention of copying, e.g. a piece of originally-produced work is automatically protected by copyright – no registration needed.   However, although this works in the creative practitioner’s favour, those that wish to work collaboratively and embrace the new digital era are finding that this traditional model can be restricting.  Frameworks exist, such as  Creative Commons, which encourage individuals to share their creative work.  Despite the advantages (more on this later) it can be quite daunting and confusing for those that need to generate an income.

What is the solution?  It seems that there is no definitive answer – but my take on it is that you first need to understand the basics of intellectual property and where it exists in your business under traditional law, and then try to have the best of both worlds – share a bit, but also protect when necessary.

Two recent events looked at different ways of managing intellectual property in the web 2.0 world.  An event by Own-it in December 08 discussed Creative Commons, and a Disruptive Social Innovators meet-up in January focussed on how IP systems are evolving to encourage collaborative innovation.  I’ll be elaborating on these events in the next post, but in the meantime consider these questions: as a creative practitioner do you know enough about traditional IP frameworks to feel comfortable utilising new models for sharing your ideas and work? And do you know when you should share and when you should protect?