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HIPO-NBAC Programme: success on the Book Festival

In the joint professional programme of HIPO and NBAC, held on the Friday of the festival (April 25th), more than 150 experts participated in the panel discussions. The conference keynote speech, at 10 am was delivered by the Vice Chairman of the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office and the National Board Against Counterfeiting, Miklós Bendzsel.

In his opening remarks the chairman pointed out how important the legal and commercial issues relating to mass digitalization have become, as well as the interpretation of laws and regulations with regards to e-books. He pointed out the damages caused by the widespread occurrence of illegal downloads, and the importance of taking a stance against such actions. He also noted that these topics are of the utmost importance to the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office as well as the National Board Against Counterfeiting in the course of the conference. He shared that the development of the new, unbiased responses and models is possible thanks to the collaboration of numerous domestic and international institutions and experts – his observation has been further supported by the content of the panel discussions.

1. Panel Discussion
Copyright Enforcement in Modern Publishing
Rights of the author and the publisher, the e-book market, devices used against misappropriation

The Panel:
Bence Sárközy, Publishing Director (Libri Könyvkiadó Kft. /Libri Publishing Ltd.)
László Földes, IT Head Editor (Kossuth Kiadó Zrt./ Kossuth Publishing Co.)
dr. Péter Horváth (ProArt – Copyright Allliance)
dr. Zsófia Lendvai, Attorney at Law (Head of the HIPO Copyright working group, member of Kajtár, Takács, Hegymegi-Barakonyi Baker & McKenzie Law Office)
Király Farkas, Poet (Head of the Hungarian Writers Alliance – Digitalization Working Group)
Moderator: dr. Mónika Németh, Secretary of the National Board Against Counterfeiting (Hungarian Intellectual Property Office)

konyvfesztival [1]Mónika Németh, secretary of the National Board Against Counterfeiting moderated the first panel discussion.
In her introduction, she discussed the ancient way of of storing information – putting letters on paper. Today, we store data on servers, clouds, changing the way we work and spend our free time, even our lives.
Michael S. Hart’s “Project Gutenberg”, launched in 1971, can be regarded as the first digitalization project, the purpose of which had been to make the largest possible number of documents accessible to the public, free of charge. This lead to the creation of what one may call the first ever digital library. The term e-book has been in use since 1998 – added the moderator.
While digital book sales increased several times over between 2008-2010 in the U.S. Raising the market share of such publications from 0.6 to 6.4 percent, during the same period in Europe, e-publications only made up for less than one percent of market shares. This discrepancy in market share acquisitions was pointed out by moderator Mónika Németh in her introduction. Domestic digital books sales peaked at 412 million HUF in the period in question, thus bringing the sales of digitalized books to 0,7% of the gross domestic market. This indicates that while Hungarian e-book sales may be significantly lower than those in the U.S., they are still in line with the European trends.
The guests of the roundtable discussion following the introduction were discussing the roots of the phenomenon. The main obstacles identified have been the lack of legal certainty, the existence of illicit downloads, the fear of competition and the high costs of development, as reasons for the low number of e-books published.
Are e-books a blessing or a curse? This was the question that arose in the discussion, as from the opposing arguments numerous advantages of e-book publication were highlighted over paper-based publications. Some of these are lower costs of production, as e-books can be produced without printing expenses, with no warehousing costs, transportation is much cheaper, and it is easier to spot counterfeiting than in the case of traditional, printed books.

2. Panel Discussion
Can copyright take the challenge? Practical issues and legal advice
The main challenges copyright law faces today, in particular the use of written works, and the practical solutions to these problems, proposals for dealing with such situations and advice from a legal perspective

The Panel:
dr. András Szinger, General Director (Society ArtisJus Hungarian Bureau for the Protection of Authors’ Rights)
TamásTófalvy, Secretary General (Association of Hungarian Content Providers)
Zsuzsanna Nagy, General Director (Central Library of Corvinus University of Budapest)
dr. Péter Lábody, Deputy Head of Department (HIPO), government representatives
Moderator: dr. Anikó Grad-Gyenge, Associate Professor at Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary, Law Faculty, consultant with the ProArt Alliance

konyvfesztival_peti [2]The section was moderated by Dr. Anikó Grad-Gyenge, Associate Professor of the Civil and Roman Rights Department at Károli Gáspár University, who is also consultant with the ProArt Copyright Alliance. The panel boasted of such guests as the Director General of the largest Hungarian collective organization for artists’ rights, the director of one of the major universities’ library, a representative of one of the main Hungarian content provider associations, and a delegate from both HIPO and the Ministry of Justice (KIM).
One of the main questions posed to the panel was the advent of the so-called cloud technology and whether this will influence the use of and access to literary works.
Another important topic was how boundaries might change between publishing and library services. One of the main points of this issue was how it is possible to build a successful business model on electronic libraries, and what are the technical and other requirements for libraries to comply with undercurrent laws.
The answers all pointed to the fact that these days we are indeed living the newest era of challenges to copyrights. It is an age, where the market, the libraries and the legislation all need to react to such challenges swiftly. The question remains, how the responsibility in reacting is shared among these institutions.

3. Panel Dicussion
Mass Digitalization: New Perspectives in the Usage of Orphan Works
The evolution of digitalization trends, transposing the Orphan Works EU Directive into Hungarian law, and the new possibilities for libraries, archives and other users in the new system

The Panel:
Szabolcs Dancs, Director (National Széchényi Library – Collection Development and Cataloguing)
Árpád Kollár, Poet (President of the Young Writers Association)
dr. Annamária Halász, Legal Counsel (Hungarian National Digital Archives)
dr. Dénes Legeza, Legal Officer, secretary of a Council of Copyright Experts (HIPO)
Moderator: dr. Péter Mezei, Associate Professor of the University of Szeged, Law Faculty,Comparative Law Institute

konyvfesztival_denes [3]The section was moderated by Dr. Péter Mezei, Associate Professor of the University of Szeged, Law Faculty, Comparative Law Institute, and the participants in the discussion were representatives of the National Széchényi Library, the Hungarian National Digital Archives, as public collections, a representative of the Young Writers Association from the authors’ side, and one delegate from HIPO and KIM each.
The main topics of the panel were whether the orphan works directive, coming into force in Autumn 2014 will assist with the digitalization and publication of works by missing authors (orphan works) on the internet.
During the discussion we gained insight into the libraries’ and arhives’ plans for digitalization, the government’s commitment to promote culture whilst upholding the law and the HIPO representative briefly described the underlying opportunities in the new directive.
The case of ongoing digitalization projects was also one of the questions under discussion in the panel, as these so far largely encompasses works classified as public domain.
The representative of the National Széchényi Library has introduced the currently running ELDORADO projekt, the aim of which is to digitalize and provide access to work currently under copyright protection.
The participants of the panel agreed that in the 21st century it is no longer feasible to restrict access to works of an author to a single building, as the consumers of culture obviously expect that the content be lawfully accessible anywhere, at any time.