Licenses, those often overlooked contracts that dictate the use of intellectual property, have been shaping human society for centuries, their roots tracing back to the ancient world.
From the ancient playhouses of the Roman Empire to the modern-day streaming services, licensing has been the invisible hand guiding the flow of information and creativity.
As we navigate the digital age, where content is king and its distribution is instantaneous, licensing has become a cornerstone of the publishing landscape.
It’s a battleground where copyright holders and content consumers clash, a delicate dance of rights and restrictions that determines the very nature of our cultural experience.
Older than imagined
Content licensing, also known as content rights or intellectual property licensing might sound as something that has emerged in the last couple of centuries.
With the arrival of digital creators, the increasing commercialisation and the consequent shift on the global market, content licensing has become an essential aspect of copyright protection.
It was, however, a long time ago when the first attempts to protect one’s own content by using some form of legal permission were undertaken.
Before patents: The first licenses
Back in Ancient Greece and Rome, creators such as artists and authors would use some early forms of content licensing to protect their works but also bring about their ensuing performances, reproductions or displays.
By using verbal agreements or written contracts, the very first form of intellectual property licensing was established.
During the Middle Ages, there was no such thing as copyright whatsoever, but the use of artistic and literary compositions was regulated by guilds and trade organisations which were made up of merchants and craftsmen.
This triggered the monopolisation of specific industries and the exemption from taxes and tariffs as a result of the many privileges from lords and monarchs.
From the Statute of Anne to the digital age
From the 17th century onwards, a more modern concept of copyright began to crystallise with ‘The Statute of Anne in 1710’ – an act passed by the British Parliament aiming at the establishment of copyright law regulated by the government itself instead of being controlled by private parties.
The British act was followed by the Copyright Act of 1790 in the United States whose objective was ‘the encouragement of learning’.
In the 19th century, with the first age of mass media and the development of communication technologies, the first licensing agreements for books, music, and other works of art began to thrive.
Only a 100 years later, the concept of ‘public domain’ emerged, which meant that after a certain period of time (usually 50 to 100 years) works were not subject to any exclusive intellectual property rights and could be used whenever and wherever applicable without permission.
Therefore, content licensing had a long history before its actual utilisation as we know it today in the digital age.
The impact of technology on modern licensing
It does not come as a surprise that with the advent of digital technology and the internet about 30 to 40 years ago, the way content was generated, distributed, and licensed underwent some major shifts.
The numerous new opportunities for content creators coming as a result of the rise of online platforms, streaming services, and social media opened the gates for new ways of monetisation which required the use of more modern forms of licensing agreements.
Looking back to the last century, one can see a tremendous step towards new digital ways of dealing with content – from its creation up to its profitability, the novelty in content creation led to new laws on legal frameworks for online copyright infringement and content licensing.
The Digital Millennial Copyright Act (DMCA) from 1998 is one example of a federal statute addressing numerable copyright issues stemming from the digitalisation of composing and managing content.
The challenges and opportunities of digital licensing
In our modern world today, content licensing is a multibillion-dollar industry with many different ways to license your content depending on its type and purpose.
There are licensing opportunities in the music industry (e.g. mechanical licenses, synchronisation licenses), but there is also film and television licensing, literary licensing, image licensing, and digital licensing.
Therefore, with the multitude of ways of protecting one’s content through legal agreements, there are often very complex negotiations and bureaucratic difficulties involved in the process of legitimising content rights.
Copyright and artificial intelligence: A complex relationship
That being said, it is no secret that along with the many opportunities, online platforms can also present some challenges for creators, publishers, and consumers.
What is even more, the battle with AI web scraping and the ensuing legal issues when it comes to copyright is a major concern that has just come about.
The way it will be dealt with in the future is still dim and there might be more complications evolving from the digital era we are currently only entering.
Something to think about might be the legal protection of artificially created content ; thus treating non-human creativity as worthy and valuable.
It is, of course, difficult, if not impossible, to try to figure out the trends of the future, but when it comes to intellectual property licensing, we might come to some fairly interesting propositions in regard to who or even what would be involved.
From tangible to digital: Licensing in the age of intellectual property
The fact that the first music licensing agreement was signed in 1984 shows us both how unpredictable the future of content licensing is and how fast it can develop – from contracts signed by standard recording associations to lawsuits between musicians and OpenAI, it all has become part of the history of content rights.
Thinking about the rise of online streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Spotify in the 2000s, it all seemed like the golden age for content creators and their endeavours to make a profit from their work through licensing contracts.
In spite of all those new opportunities, it turned out that there are even more ways to profit from the internet with the arrival of other online platforms.
The growth of social media and user-generated content platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram has laid the foundations of a great number of new opportunities to profit from creators’ presence on the internet.
Whether it is a profit made by using content from other creators, companies, and media, or by legally lending one’s own content in the form of a video, picture, a text, or whatever, there are many easy ways for monetisation nowadays.
And while in the past you needed some kind of professional proof in order to thrive in a specific field and be able to license and consequently profit, today everybody can obtain an advantage from simply showing their creativity to the world.
As we can see, the history of content licensing is very complex and has been shaped by many different periods.
The changing nature of creativity, technology, and commerce is clearly deducible only from delving more deeply into the history of content rights.
It is, therefore, in the way we tackle future trends in the content creation industry that we would see how big of a trace they would have left on history.
Author
Tina Doncheva
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