The British Library has published a new report, Driving UK Research – Is copyright a help or a hindrance? (pdf). Sourced directly from 13 active researchers and educators, the report reflects the hindrances that copyright as currently structured pose to their daily work, and a consensus on the need for reform.

The report also features a letter from Dame Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library, closing with the following:

There is a supreme irony that just as technology is allowing greater access to books and other creative works than ever before for education and research, new restrictions threaten to lock away digital content in a way we would never countenance for printed material.

Let’s not wake up in five years’ time and realise we have unwittingly lost a fundamental building block for innovation, education and research in the UK. Who is protecting the public interest in the digital world? We need to redefine copyright in the digital age and find a balance to benefit creators, educators, researchers, the creative industries – and the knowledge economy.

It would be difficult to state the fundamentals of what is at stake more clearly than this–globally. While some of the essays touch on specific issues in UK copyright, researchers, educators, and citizens everywhere will gain relevant insight from the report.

Creative Commons of course makes it easy for you to offer your work under terms in more in balance with the digital age–as The British Library and contributors have done with Driving UK Research–the report is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

One of the report’s contributors, Cameron Neylon, has used the choice offered by the range of Creative Commons tools to release his contribution of all copyright hindrances via the CC0 public domain waiver. Read Neylon’s essay and the entire report–and share!