News

January 2009
The last Wider Group meeting and AGM took place at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and included presentations on the:

• EC Green Paper on Copyright by Peter Wienand;
• Digital Agenda and Copyright by Nick Poole, The Collections Trust;
• Strategic Content Alliance Orphan Works Survey by Naomi Korn;
• WATCH File by David Sutton from the University of Reading;
• MILE Orphan Works Database by Jessica Tier and Lucy Geering from the MILE Project and Bridgeman.

November 2008
The Museums Copyright Group formed an Executive Action group in September 2008 to look at ways of responding effectively to the EC Green Paper: Copyright in the Knowledge Economy. The group commissioned the respected IP lawyer Peter Wienand to work with other cultural organisations and draft the group's response to the Green Paper.

The group's response took into consideration the submissions from Collections Trust, JISC, LACA, The National Archive, British Library and SCONUL. Collections Trust galvanised other organisations in the public sector to respond, such as museums, galleries, libraries, archives and educational institutions. You can read the MCG's response here and details of the Collections Trust campaign and their response can be found their website.

June 2008
The last Wider Group meeting was held at the National Gallery Cardiff and included presentations on:

• Recent developments in copyright legislation including the Gowers consultation and the PSI directive;
• Current initiatives to tackle orphan works;
• Using photo metadata to store copyright information.

April 2008
The Museums Copryight Group submitted its response to the Lord Triesman's consultation on Proposed Changes to Copyright Exceptions following on from the Gowers Review which can be found here.

January 2007
In celebration of its 10th Anniversary, the Museums Copyright Group with Kings College London will be hosting an international copyright conference Connecting Culture and Commerce: Getting the Right Balance at the National Gallery on Friday 26 January 2007. More information about the conference and registration details can be found at: http://www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/mcg2007/

March 2006
The Museums Copyright Group has made a reponse to the Culture Media and Sport Inquiry into new media and creative industries which can be found here.

August 2005
The Museums Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) has funded the Museums Copyright Group (MCG) to explore with the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) the possibility of a blanket licensing scheme. This would allow digitisation of artistic works in collections and digital copies to be made available to staff, students and the public. MLA, the MCG and DACS need your help in providing information to take those discussions forward. A simple questionnaire has been designed which is accessible for on-line completion.

Further information about the proposals is provided in the questionnaire. MCG would be enormously grateful if the relevant person in an organisation could spare a little time to complete the questionnaire. This will provide extremely valuable information about digital copyright management issues in the cultural sector that will inform the development of schemes and policies to make life easier for museums, galleries, archives and libraries.

April 2005
MCG is delighted to offer all prospective individual members of the Group the opportunity to join the MCG and MDA at the same and save on membership fees. Members of MDA benefit from:

• Access to AdvicePoint telephone and e-mail advisory service;
• Quarterly Collections News magazine;
• Membership of MDA's online community;
• Regular updates to the SPECTRUM standard;
• Members-only prices for publications and manual systems;
• Discounts on attendance at conferences and trade-fairs.

This offer is only available for a limited time and more information about which can be found on our Membership application form.

March 2005
MCG is currently in the process of discussing with DACS (Design and Artists Copyright Society) the development of a blanket licence scheme between collecting societies and cultural organisations for the digitisation and delivery of cultural heritage materials for educational benefit. These discussions are based upon preliminary findings outlined in a Feasibility Study carried out recently and included here with kind permission of DACS and MLA.

August 2004
MCG is delighted to be working with colleagues from LACA on the Copyright Designs and Patent Act (CDPA) Revision Project.

July 2004
MCG has been asked to develop the new Museums Association Copyright Law seminar, part of the Essentials series which will be piloted at the MA Conference on the 13th/14th September in Edinburgh. All subscribed MCG members will benefit from a £50 charge for the seminar (instead of £75).

Subscribed MCG members have been offered a 10% discount on the forthcoming MDA Copyright Workshop - Plan It, Copy Right

April 2004
MCG assists MDA with 'best practice' copyright advice for the new edition of SPECTRUM.

The MCG's web pages were extensively revised and enhanced to reflect the growth of the Group and also the recent changes in copyright law.

MCG meets with LACA colleagues to discuss areas of mutual interest and joint action, for example regarding the impact on the sector of the 2003 Copyright Regulations, and EC legislation on the governance of collective licensing societies.

January 2004
The Group decided to formalize its procedures by introducing rules for membership and annual subscription fees.

December 2003
The Group commissioned some in-depth guidelines examining the impact on the sector of the 2003 Copyright Regulations. These comprehensive, Guidelines on the Recent Changes to Copyright Law, are now available.

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