In efforts to address emerging copyright issues for multimedia developers, the March 26 meeting of the Toronto’s Interactive Multimedia Arts and Technologies Association enlisted legal and business experts to attempt to tackle the vast number of questions which have arisen on the subject.

Ian Kyer, partner and director of the Computer and Technology Law Group at Toronto law firm Fasken Campbell Godfrey gave a brief overview of copyright law in which he emphasized that each separate component of a multimedia project is protected by copyright

Tom Jurenka, director of Toronto-based systems development firm Disus and project manager for the networked intellectual property management system ivy, addressed the issue of protecting rights on a computer network.

Jurenka predicted a commercialization of the higgledy-piggledy development of the Internet as it is now known and advised not to become too attached to the status quo ‘where everyone has a Web page.’

The more bandwidth demands that are made, the question of who is footing the bill will be more pressing, said Jurenka. ‘In about a year you’ll see the rationalization of networks. It will shake out on a more commercial basis.’

Jurenka forecasts the emergence of a gamut of middlemen to deliver content; third-party clearing houses which will register and monitor copyrights.

The Intercom Broadband test being conducted in Newmarket, Ont., for which Jurenka is content manager, will deliver a variety of multimedia formats, and Jurenka says it will employ a content management system based on a clearing-house model. ‘It’s basically a port of an existing institution onto a new network environment.’

Copyright and new media lawyer Lesley Ellen Harris pinpointed multimedia developers as ground zero in the intellectual property debate, and said advances in digital media and monitoring and encryption technologies will ameliorate the situation.

‘Technology will solve the problem it created,’ said Harris.