You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Law’ category.
On World Intellectual Property Day, who can predict what will happen with the value of intellectual property in the future. Will it still be the same in 2025, will it be seen as an irrelevance or will everything be crowd-sourced, socially-owned and open sourced? As a publisher Gower has a vested interest in what will happen and, with the caveat that my views are coloured by my position, let me offer three observations …
Paid for content versus everything for free
Free stuff is always welcome but without question, you do get what you pay for, and innovation, creativity and new content all have a cost. Personally, I think that, while new models will continue to emerge (who could have imagined the mobile apps model 10 years ago!), the need for curation of content and information will mean that customers will still be willing to pay. In a world where digital content is exploding, the value of rigorous, consistent and well signposted content is surely very significant;
New shared models
Crowdsourcing is attracting a lot of attention, but there are other more mainstream opportunities for businesses to create and innovate that don’t involve the mass market. Collaborative business is on the rise and with it comes a need and an aspiration for organizations to share risk and, consequently, share reward. That must point towards some new models that enable practical shared ownership of IP rights between different organizations, companies, governments and NGOs.
A collaborative approach to publishing
I am very proud of the fact that Gower has always worked with our authors and editors on the basis of licensed rights. We have never insisted that authors assign their copyright as part of a publishing agreement nor have we sought to bind them to us with restrictive arrangements for their future books. We are already developing new collaborative models for publishing in the future – models that enable us to contribute and profit from those aspects of a work’s intellectual property where we can add value through editing, distribution and marketing, whilst at the same time, enabling authors to exploit their own IP in directions and media that are outside our (realistic) reach.
A handful of Gower and Ashgate titles on intellectual property:
The 2013 dates have been released for a Mastering Anti-Money Laundering Training Course. The first two day course will be running on 16-17 May 2013 in London.
Some of the topic areas covered:
Introduction to Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing ~ Role of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) ~ EU Directives ~ The US and its Effect Internationally ~ UK Legal and Regulatory Requirements ~ Customer Due Diligence ~ Ongoing Monitoring ~ Record Keeping ~ Suspicions and Reporting ~ Money Laundering Reporting Officer ~ Senior Management Responsibility ~ Training and Awareness ~ Sanctions ~ Interrelationship Between Financial Crime/Fraud And Money Laundering
If you would like to know more, you can download the Mastering Anti-Money Laundering brochure, or ring to speak to one of our consultants on +44 (0)20 7017 7190.
This course has an impressive agenda which you will find on the course website. The course leader is a Gower author Doug Hopton who is a Consultant and Trainer on money laundering and financial crime prevention. Before establishing his company in 2003, he was with Barclays Bank for over 37 years for many of which he was Head of Group Fraud and Money Laundering Prevention. All of his years of knowledge will be condensed into your two days training.
Information about Doug’s book Money Laundering including a PDF of the whole of chapter one to read at your leisure can be found on our website.
In our everyday lives we use our debit cards, credit cards and drivers licence on a regular basis to buy things, prove our age or to show we are legal to drive. Our name is listed on all of these documents but we don’t actually need it. The only people who benefit from our names being present on these cards are identity thieves. Gower author, David Birch, explains in his seminar what needs to be done in order for us to keep our identities protected and safe.
Watch his seminar via youtube here.
David’s book, Digital Identity Management is available from Gower.
Infosecurity 2012 is taking place at Earl’s Court on 24 – 26 April. Gower author, Ian Mann, will be at the event with his company ECSC Ltd on stand E80.
Ian will be presenting at the event in the Business Strategy Theatre at 12pm on Thursday 26th April with the headline of Social Engineering IX – Hacking the Globe – a snappy little title, that sets the theme for an examination of cultural differences that impact on the task of the social engineer. This is the result of his social engineering work across a number of continents.
Do pop in and see Ian on the ECSC stand at any time during the three days - he will be doing regular short presentations each day. ECSC are vendor independent information security specialists offering expert guidance, support and management services.
Ian’s book, Hacking the Human is available from Gower Publishing.
Having a robust risk management strategy in place is essential for ensuring your organisation runs as smoothly as possible. Penny Pullan and Ruth Murray-Webster’s book focuses on facilitating risk management so that you are able to identify, own and manage risks.
You can read Chapter 1 for free, to give you a taste of the book and its authoritative content.
Penny and Ruth are running a 2 day workshop on 21 & 22 February 2012 at the Radisson Blu East Hotel at East Midlands Airport. The two days focus on and delve deeper into the topics covered in their book A Short Guide to Facilitating Risk Management.
You can find out more information about this event here.
Following Wikipedia’s Blackout in protest to the Intellectual Property and Online Piracy acts being debated in America, many have begun wondering what the future could hold for the business models in the film and music industries and whether these business models themselves are outdated.
Jane Lambert, has written a number of articles on her blog, that give a good background to IP policy and the film and music industries:
IPC Policy: Does Hargreaves say Anything New?
Injunctions against ISPs Part II: the CJEU’s Judgment in Scarlet
Jane is the author of Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights
Weak people who are a waste of space in business! Rape cases that are not so bad, and rape cases that are not so good! Elderly disabled people in Birmingham on the receiving end of threatened budget cuts to the (totally essential) care that they receive. Women even being told they shouldn’t wear mini skirts after 35, or bikinis after 47, or high heels after 51. (Ageist, eh? I wonder what Joan Collins would say to that?). Housemaids in the Middle East being treated like slaves (really very nasty indeed).
I don’t think that you should cherry pick your prejudices. You can’t pick on the weakest. You can’t reserve your Duty of Care remedies for some and not for the others, or create special cases. If you do you will inevitably get into difficulties. You need joined up thinking. Repeat, you need joined up thinking. Otherwise you will get Equality Risk. You will lose hard-earned reputation (as in the case of the Toronto Police or Birmingham City Council). You will get into trouble with all sorts of people and the media, or you will have to eat your words (Ken Clarke MP please note).
The lawyers, who are paid to know exactly what they are doing, will always cost you lots of money.
All of the topics above are current scenario’s being reported in the media and Tony Morden has covered such cases in his book A Short Guide to Equality Risk. In it, Tony analyses components of an Equality, Diversity, and Discrimination (EDD) Agenda: equality, diversity, opportunity, and discrimination to assist you in protecting yourself and your organization from this politically sensitive, and high risk subject.
Since employees a a significant source of ideas for new products, patents and inventions how can you motivate and reward them to encourage contribution? Donal O’Connell (Harvesting External Innovation) offers some useful perspectives on the law in a variety of jurisdictions and on the practicalities of reward and recognition programmes in his paper on IPEG.
Previous recessions, when organizations have been under financial stress, have lead to a rise in the cases of bullying and workplace harassment so perhaps it is an appropriate moment to mention this straight-forward awareness raising factsheet from the Kade Consultancy. Elaine Douglas of the Kade Consultancy is author of Gower’s Bullying in the Workplace training resource.
