Does Copyright Only Serve the Creative Industries?

Abstract

This article contains an opinion on the application of copyright in regard to attracting venture financing and public offering of shares. While researchers and practitioners prefer to talk about the value of patents, not enough attention has been devoted to copyright in this context. Copyright applies to the whole world immediately after the publication was made and can be commercialized in any industry, from a financial services holding company to an electric power company. Copyright should be considered an addition to patent protection, as well as an addition to trademark protection. It influences the company's attractiveness. On the other hand, the article describes the mechanism for preventing copyright infringement within the company. A literature review and statistical analysis of the registration of works in the field of copyright were done. For the analysis, the first 50 companies from the list of the world's largest companies by consolidated revenue as of 2018 were selected. The data about copyright activity was obtained through open sources. The methods of descriptive statistics were applied. The considered companies represent different industries, so the overall results cannot be explained with reference to the industry (for example, to the creative industries). From the results, we see that the registration of documents in the field of copyright is a common practice regardless of the company's field of activity. The experience of implementing the registration of copyright of the electric power engineering company is shared. The arguments presented in the article prove the effectiveness of copyright registration regardless of the areas of business. Preventing copyright infringement is an important process from an economic point of view. Copyright fair use management system for internal use was designed. The system includes legal, educational, and specific aspects. Such a system has already proven its effectiveness within the engineering company. The implementation of the developed system in the company made it possible to significantly reduce infringements related to the illegal use of photos and videos in advertising (digital and paper) and on social media. The results of monitoring within the copyright fair use management system are embedded in business processes such as software sales offers.