This September I’ll be flying out to Warsaw, Poland to take part in CopyCamp 2017. The Internet of Copyrighted Things.

Is your life affected by copyright? No doubts if you are into culture, as you are certainly aware that you have to adjust to it when building upon others’ work or when planning to make a living from creativity. You must have heard about copyright also if you are a teacher, a scientist, or a programmer, as copyright-protected works are used in education, research, and technology.

But were you aware that using a mixture of copyrights, other exclusive rights such patents or database rights, and technology (the so-called DRM) virtually all information goods may be appropriated? In the age of “Internet of Things” this means that more and more things you own contain a computer program or data subject to someone else’s exclusive control. Obviously, this has a profound impact on every aspect of everyone’s life.

The primary goal of CopyCamp 2017 is to broaden the scope of the debate about exclusive rights. We want to talk about culture, science, and education, but we also want to discuss how exclusive rights are used in, for example, health and food. We will listen to stories touching on real-life issues in the following thematic tracks:

• business models, heritage digitization, remix
• health, food, security, and exclusive rights
• text and data mining, machine learning, online education
• IoT: autonomous cars, smart homes, wearables
• hacking government data, public procurement, public aid in culture

I’ll be delivering a presentation about copyright and digital culture, focusing largely on the No Copyright Infringement Intended exhibition that took place at Phoenix in Leicester and will be making it’s way to Vivid Projects in September. I’ll be talking alongside a great many copyright experts, artists, hackers and more including Mitch Altman and Nick Briz.

Did I mention it’s all free?

Many thanks to Near Now for providing financial support for me to be able to attend CopyCamp.