Australian and International speakers have debated whether Australia’s intellectual property (IP) laws are holding the country back from becoming a knowledge-based economy at a recent conference.

At the conference, Making the Most of Creativity: In the Public Interest!, at which the Adelphi Charter (http://www.adelphicharter.org) was launched, international expert John Howkins called on the Australian government to consider the Charter as a global blueprint for managing creators’ rights whilst sharing information to encourage further creativity.

The Adelphi Charter, unveiled by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), was written by an international commission of artists, scientists, lawyers, economists, activists, environmentalists, information experts and Nobel Laureates. Instrumental to its creation were Australians, Louise Sylvan of the ACCC and Peter Drahos of Australian National University, and international expert, John Howkins, author of Creative Economy – How people make money from ideas.

Knowledge-based industries significantly contribute to the Australian economy. According to Austrade, the value of our services exports was a record $35 billion in 2004/05; up from $28.3 billion in 1999-2000 and greater than our manufacturing and rural exports. According to conference convenor, Roger Clarke, a smarter intellectual property framework has the potential to accelerate knowledge exports and affects everybody who makes their living from intellectual capital – or what Clarke calls “vapourware”.

“Governments, businesses and individuals all suffer if intellectual property laws inhibit, rather than protect and foster, innovation. Creative people need a fair-go to generate revenue streams in a digital environment,” he says. “This is a global issue – 60 per cent of the exports discussed in the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement consist of intellectual property.”

According to Howkins, “Expansion of intellectual property laws over the last 30 years has left us with a system so radically out of line with modern technological, economic and social trends that it threatens innovation.”The conference was hosted by AEShareNet, which trades educational knowledge at its online marketplace (www.aesharenet.com.au).{moscomment}