The Scottish Council on Archives is pleased to announce the first conference in Scotland to take an objective and expert look at copyright in the digital age. This major event is being run in partnership with The Scotsman Conferences and is sponsored by Shepherd & Wedderburn LLP.

Digital has thrown up new challenges for the creative industries and cultural heritage sector, not least how best they can protect the ownership and management of written and recorded materials in a world where content can be shared across the globe with the tap of a smartphone screen. In recognition of this challenge, the UK government has made a series of small but important changes to copyright law to make it better suited for the digital age. These changes will affect how people can access and use material such as books, music, films and photographs. There will be greater freedoms in copyright law to allow third parties to licence and use copyright works for economically and/or socially valuable purposes without the need to seek permission from copyright owners. But content creators have real concerns that their rights will not be fully respected under these changes.

It is essential that the cultural heritage sector fully understands these changes, implements the law correctly and takes a sector-wide approach rather than leave individual services to duplicate time-consuming copyright research.

This conference will provide an opportunity to:
• focus on the impending changes and their practical impact
• look across the copyright landscape as it affects the cultural heritage sector
• learn from those with undoubted copyright expertise

The event forms part of a programme of activities undertaken by the Scottish Council on Archives. Since early 2014, we have been collaborating with CREATe, at the University of Glasgow (http://www.create.ac.uk) to deliver freely accessible online copyright guidance and a series of related capacity-building workshops for the archive sector. The Council is also the only UK-based accredited member organisation of the World Intellectual Property Organisation's (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR). Please visit our website for details on activities to date: www.scottisharchives.org.uk/copyright.

Fees include refreshments, networking lunch and exclusive access to the Post Conference Reports.

For more details and bookings please visit: http://www.scotsmanconferences.com/viewconference.aspx?id=56.