The Intellectual Property Plan Somehow Came Together

 ■The Intellectual Property Plan Somehow Came Together

The Intellectual Property Plan was finalized during a council at the Prime Minister’s Office, which the Prime Minister and cabinet members attended.

This is the 10th plan since I was appointed Joint Chairperson.

Since Japanese clothes became mandated as part of the Cool Japan policy during the first round, this means that 10 years have passed since Japanese clothes became required.

First, the 3 pillars of “beyond average,” “fusion,” and “empathy” were established to achieve the “Value Design Society” that was included in the “Intellectual Property Strategic Vision” that was formulated last year.

Beyond average: Enhance individual entities and encourage them to take on challenges

Fusion: Bring together various dispersed entities and accelerate new bonds

Empathy: Create an environment in which values can easily be achieved

Up next was antipiracy measures.

The conclusion was, “Steps necessary to execute comprehensive sets of measures for related ministries and agencies, such as to execute effective copyright education, promote official distribution channels, strengthen international cooperation and execution, establish search site measures, regulate advertisements for pirated sites, and evaluate other potentially effective systems, will be carried out.”

During this term, intellectual property strategies in the field of content received a lot of attention among antipiracy measures, and although it was a great achievement that comprehensive measures were completed, differences in opinion regarding intellectual property and IT also surfaced, presenting a major issue for future attempts to build intellectual property and IT strategies. It would be beneficial to continue to explore intellectual property strategies in the digital age.

“Fusion” measures include the promotion of open innovation, establishment of an intellectual property platform, creation of a system and rules to promote the appropriate use of data and AI, and the realization of a digital archive society.

It was interesting that the revision of approval scheme guidelines for information entrustment features and the introduction of an information bank were brought up.

“Empathy” measures include the construction of a creation ecosystem and the continuous enhancement of Cool Japan strategies.

The preparation of database with rights information in the field of music and the preparation of foreign language metadata needed to enter the global market through international music transmission services are topics related to our Artist Commons and SyncMusic.

An important item was brought up.

“Regarding the facilitation of rights processing, including system revisions involving the handling of neighboring rights for simultaneous transmission, will begin to be evaluated in detail by related ministries and agencies soon within the fiscal year, with plenty of consideration of the will of related parties, and a conclusion will be made regarding the nature of the system will be made within this fiscal year, while also steadily incorporating operational improvements.”

A revision was enacted to the Broadcast Act to allow simultaneous transmission by NHK, but copyright processing is a bottleneck for online transmission. The Japanese system, which requires consent for each instance, is seen as a problem, and rightsholders, such as those in the music industry, have also sought changes to the system. This is the next major theme.

Next, the item from the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry was, “The nature of governance over competitive tournaments will be assessed for sound development of the esports industry.” This is the start of the esports policy.

The last measure brought up was “the operation of a professional university system to assist in nurturing human resources for Cool Japan.” iU, which will be established as a professional university, will assist in this effort.