This summer (2013), the Copyright Hub will go live. The Hub is a UK initiative to help those who use copyright-protected content to obtain reliable copyright information. The Hub is intended to be a one-stop online space for consumers of content to obtain information about rights ownership and copyright licenses.
The Hub will be built and led by U.K. music, publishing, audio-visual and images industries. It will act as a portal with intelligent connections to a wide range of websites, digital copyright exchanges and databases in the U.K. and globally. Its goal is to streamline copyright licensing by providing a marketplace for various rights without geographical limitations. Amongst its proposed features are ease of use and low transaction costs.
The initial twelve organisations providing services are: the BBC, the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies (BAPLA), Copyright Clearance Centre (CCC), Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA), Federation of Commercial Audio-visual Libraries (FOCAL), Getty Images, the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA), Pearson, the Picture Licensing Universal System (PLUS), PPL and PRS for Music.
The focus of the Hub is on copyright education. Why? “…people want to do the right thing. Unfortunately in the digital age it has become more and more difficult to understand what is legal and what is not. The purpose of including copyright education is to help make this distinction clearer. It will also help in promoting the importance of copyright and of being paid when a work is used.”