Dialogue on internet content and intellectual property

SEMINAR: The ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), which functions under the President's Office, together with the National Intellectual Property Office of Sri Lanka (NIPO), Outstanding Song Creators Association (OSCA), the ICT sector in Sri Lanka both industry and academia, and several other sponsors, have taken steps to initiate a dialogue on a series of topics based on the deployment of content over the Internet and relevant Intellectual Property Rights issues.

This dialogue would be facilitated through a series of lectures and seminars to be conducted in Sri Lanka by Prof Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law of the Stanford Law School of Stanford University and a world renown authority on Cyber Law (www.lessig.org), who would be in Sri Lanka on the invitation of ICTA on May 22 and 23, 2006.

The areas of expertise on which Prof Lessig would speak would include Intellectual Property Rights and Software issues (including Open Source Licensing), future trends in Information and Communication policy and Internet content deployment.

Sri Lanka has an advanced Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime based on the Intellectual Property Act No. 36 of 2003. An element of IPR (Copyright protection) has traditionally been viewed as offering an incentive for the production of artistic, scientific, and other creative content, while permitting the public to access, use and innovate with such creative works.

The Internet and other global information technologies have opened new opportunities for the creation, distribution, and use of creative content.

To maximise the potential of and to promote such activity a unique licensing regime known as the Creative Commons Licence has been established.

Keynote address on "Foss and Open Content will be at Foss-Ed at ExcelWorld on May 22 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., while the public lecture on "A Way Forward for Emerging Economies through Creativity in ICT" will be at Hotel Galadari on May 22 from 5 p.m.

The public lecture on "Software, Intellectual Property Management and Internet Content Deployment" will be held at the Trans Asia Hotel, on May 23.