World Intellectual Property Day 2025 - IP and Music: Feel the Beat of IP

Catrin Finch

Author Maelor Licence Public Domain Source Wikimedia Commons

Jane Lambert

World Intellectual Property Day is an international festival of creativity and innovation on or around 26 April each year. It commemorates the entry into force of the Convention that established the World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO"), Every year the festival, focuses on a different theme. The theme for 2025 is "IP and Music: Feel the Beat of IP". According to the WIPO, this year’s World IP Day invites us to explore how IP rights and innovation policies empower creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs to bring fresh ideas to the music industry, safeguarding the work of songwriters, composers, performers, and all those who shape the music that moves us.

In preparation for the day, the WIPO has assembled IP resources and tools for inventors, creators and entrepreneurs relating to music. The featured link at the top of the portal is CLIP which stands for "Creators Learn Intellectual Property".  Other resources include guides on The Global Digital Music Industry, Artists in the Digital Music Marketplace and IP Awareness for Creative Industries and publications on How to Make a Living from Music, Are the best tunes played on the oldest fiddles? Distribution and digitization of recorded classical music and Musical Works and Audio-Visual Works - Collective Management Toolkit. There are also links to "IP success stories in the music sphere" and "Music and IP: Essential Tools for Creators, Inventors and Entrepreneurs."  

Music is an art form in which Wales excels in every genre and at every level.  The Menai Science Park ("M-SParc") has participated in every World IP Day celebration since 2019.  Every year it has held lunchtime seminars on the theme as well as other initiatives to benefit businesses and individuals in Northwest Wales.  M-SParc already participates in Gogledd Creadigol which is a network for the creative industries including music in North Wales.  

The science park was established by Bangor University which also set up the Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre an important music venue for Northwest Wales. On 10 Jan 2025 for example it will host the Welsh National Opera's New Year's Celebration in its Bryn Terfel Theatre.  On 18 Jan 2025, it will stage Gig Teulu with Meinir Gwilym, Elin Fflur and Buddug in the same auditorium.  Ballet Cymru has performed Tir to the music of Cerys Matthews in the Pontio.  Catrin Finch, whose photo appears above, also wrote the score for the company's Celtic Concerto.

In previous years, M-SParc has invited me to propose a programme for the lunchtime seminar and also to chair it.  Should the science park do so again, I shall invite composers, songwriters and performers from Wales and leading practitioners on copyright,  rights in performances and artificial intelligence from around the world to participate.  I would also try to involve the Pontio and Gogledd Creadigol in the celebrations.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form at all other times.

Coleg Menai Hosts Gogledd Creadigol at its New Campus

Standard YouTube Licence

Jane Lambert

Gogledd Creadigol or Creative North Wales describes itself on its Facebook page as "a network for the creative digital industries in North Wales".  Its aim is to encourage networking and collaboration between the digital creative companies and further and higher education institutions in order to secure a prosperous future for the industry in North Wales.

I first learned about the network on 21 April 2011 when I took part in a dialogue with Carwyn Edwards on Copyright and ICT organized by North Wales Tech and North Wales Creative.  Copies of my slides for that event can be downloaded from Slideshare.  I wrote about it in Gogledd Creadigol on 11 May 2021. I subsequently attended a joint meeting of North Wales Creative and Creative Wales at the Galeri arts centre in Caernarfon on 9 Nov 2022 (see North Wales Creative meets Creative Wales 11 Nov 2022).  I also attended Gogledd Creadigol's Creative Digital  Awards Ceremony at Theatr Clwyd in Mold on 2 Feb 2023.

Gogledd Creadigol's most recent meeting took place on the new Bangor campus of Coleg Menai on the Parc Menai business park.  It began with a tour of the campus.  Some idea of its impressive educational and skills training facilities can be gained from the above video and the photos on Gogledd Creadigol's Facebook page.  The new Bangor campus forms part of Grŵp Llandrillo Menai which is an amalgamation of Coleg Llandrillo, Coleg Menai and Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor.  The merged establishment is enormous employing 2,000 staff and teaching 21,000 students in Anglesey, Conwy, Denbighshire and Gwynedd.

After an introduction from the Chair and an update from Tom Burke there were presentations from the Federation of Small Businesses, North Wales Regional Skills Partnership, Supertemps and Cymru Creadigol.  The FSB promoted The Power of Creativity, a study of the creative industries in Wales which it had published on 24 Oct 2024.  The speaker from the Skills Partnership spoke about training in the creative sector.  One slide which stuck in my mind showed that a higher proportion of qualified persons in the creative sector in Anglesey and Gwynedd than those in Northeast Wales.  The speaker attributed that to a longer commute to the English border.  I put it to her that it was also consistent with the creation of new jobs and business opportunities at M-SParc.   She did not disagree. 

According to the FSB the turnover of the creative industries in Wales was £3.8 billion in 2022 contributing 5.3% to the nation's GDP.  Some 40% of the businesses in the sector are one-person concerns and 80% of those industries employ between 1 and 9 people.  The legal protection of brands, designs and works of art or literature is crucial to the success of those businesses.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on 020 7404 5252 during UK office hours or send me a message through my contact page at other times.