Innovation and copyright: not friends any more?

The traditional purpose of copyright in most countries is to provide an incentive for creation and innovation. But is copyright now just as much an obstacle or impediment to innovation and creativity? Several developments in Australia and overseas have highlighted the role of copyright in stifling innovation and constituting a barrier to creativity and education. This paper examines the question in the title in the light of these developments. In particular, the paper will consider a major new Australian report on innovation published in September 2008. The report, VenturousAustralia (the Cutler report) has a strong focus on open access, a skeptical approach to copyright, and a friendly view of the role of libraries in achieving openness. At the same time, the new Australian Government's Digital Education Revolution has led to the creation of an advisory group to look at the ways in which current copyright restrictions inhibit the application of the digital revolution to education. The paper will also consider other developments in thinking about the ways in which copyright may inhibit innovation and creativity. The paper has a strong focus on open access and the role of public institutions, and in particular libraries, in facilitating access to works by reducing the barriers created by old-fashioned approaches to copyright. In doing this, the paper will deal with some of the dilemmas posed for repositories by current publishing models, and practical ways in which repositories may deal with these issues. In doing so, the paper will draw particularly on the Australian copyright experience, in which the author's university (Swinburne University of Technology) is a key player. The author is an Australian university librarian, and is also involved in several national consultative groups on copyright in education, as well as being chair of the Australian Digital Alliance, a copyright lobby group.