Protecting copyright - New rules for a new media model

Tuesday’s announcement by Taoiseach Enda Kenny that a referendum will be held on the EU’s fiscal compact had hardly concluded before suggestions were made that we should use the threat of a “no” vote to secure credit write-offs or, at the very least, reduced terms for some of the vast debt foisted on Ireland.

It was a natural reaction, one that might be endorsed by great swathes of people sick of the burden of trying to honour obscene bank debts. That these debts seem so utterly unavoidable, so immutable, that they take primacy over the hardship their resolution means for hundreds of thousands of people in this country and millions more right across Europe, underlines the privileges and protection afforded to property.

This privilege is primarily focussed on capital in the form of finance, land or some of the other physically tangible assets we use to define wealth. As yet this shield has not been successfully applied to one of the modern world’s greatest drivers and innovations — privately created and funded data published online.