Ana Vuopala

Government Counsellor for the Finnish Ministry of Culture speaks on contemporary copyright issues at Exeter Law School

Ms Ana Vuopala, Government Counsellor at the Art and Cultural Policy Department of the Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland, shared her practical insight into copyright law in the digital age at Exeter Law School. Vuopala presented her work in the context of a larger intellectual property conference on intellectual property law hosted on the 16th and 17th of April 2018 at the University of Exeter.

Vuopala’s most recent work for the Finnish government looks at the meta-data embedded in copyright works which are communicated in a digital form. In her view, the meta-data could be used to give copyright law a more sustainable future by making sure it carries accurate copyright-related information. This would help consumers and users of copyright works navigate the copyright system more easily. Vuopala writes “the metadata [accompanying copyright works] is mostly understood to be something of a very technical nature like the time, date or location of an image for reporting purposes or on the binding or a volume of a work for archival purposes. But the actual information on who owns the rights and should get remuneration, who is entitled to be credited, is the protection still in force, who plays the trombone etc. does not feature in it yet. […] Metadata should be put in shape by the rightholders themselves to make copyright more sustainable in the future.” The conference was sponsored by Stephens Scown LLP, together with the Society of Legal Scholars and the British and Irish Law Education and Technology Association.

Date: 20 June 2018