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CopyCamp 2017. The Internet of Copyrighted Things

September 28-29, Warsaw (Kino Praha)

Is your life affected by copyright? No doubts if you are into culture, as you are certainly aware that you have to adjust to it when building upon others’ work or when planning to make a living from creativity. You must have heard about copyright also if you are a teacher, a scientist, or a programmer, as copyright-protected works are used in education, research, and technology.

But were you aware that using a mixture of copyrights, other exclusive rights such patents or database rights, and technology (the so-called DRM) virtually all information goods may be appropriated? In the age of “Internet of Things” this means that more and more things you own contain a computer program or data subject to someone else’s exclusive control. Obviously, this has a profound impact on every aspect of everyone’s life.

The resulting issues have to be addressed in a neutral, multi-sided debate involving all interested parties. Since 2012, the Modern Poland Foundation has organised the annual international CopyCamp conference to provide a forum for such a debate. At CopyCamp we discuss the law, but it is not a legal conference. In the last 5 years, we have succeeded in making CopyCamp the biggest conference on social and economic aspects of copyright in Europe. Over this time, we have facilitated exchange of ideas between 250 speakers from all over Europe and abroad.

The primary goal of CopyCamp 2017 is to broaden the scope of the debate about exclusive rights. We want to talk about culture, science, and education, but we also want to discuss how exclusive rights are used in, for example, health and food. We will listen to stories touching on real-life issues in the following thematic tracks:

• business models, heritage digitization, remix
• health, food, security, and exclusive rights
• text and data mining, machine learning, online education
• IoT: autonomous cars, smart homes, wearables
• hacking government data, public procurement, public aid in culture

As always, we will be pleased to host all interested parties in a neutral and friendly space, and encourage participants to share thoughts and exchange ideas.

Regional cooperation

We have been particularly proud of our Visegrad Track, that we have organised to facilitate the exchange of ideas on the unique situation of V4 countries, whose voices are less heard in the debate dominated by big players. Thanks to the cooperation with Iuridicum Remedium, Asimov Foundation, and Trnava University we are hosting a growing group of V4 experts.

The Visegrad Track will remain with us this year. Additional regional cooperation will develop further as the team of our partners includes now also the Institut für Rechtsfragen der Freien und Open Source Software (ifrOSS.de) and Free Software Foundation Europe. It will result in an increased exchange of experiences on issues mutually shared between Poland and Germany at the national level, but also subject to a heated debate currently taking place at the EU-level.

Partners of the conference

Strategic Partners of the conference are Google, ZIPSEE Cyfrowa Polska, and Mozilla Foundation.
Other partners include: EDRi, OpenForum Europe, Open Knowledge International, ifrOSS, Free Software Foundation Europe, Creative Commons.

CopyCamp is part of the Future of Copyright project conducted by the Modern Poland Foundation.

Past editions

Recordings and photos from the past editions of the conference are available in the Past Editions tab.