“Advancing the Creative Economy” was the theme of the Copyright Clearance Center’s OnCopyright 2012 conference on March 30, and an important first order of business seemed to be defining what, exactly, a creative economy is. For many, it became a matter of semantics: “piracy” and “stealing” vs. “infringement,” “individual” vs. “commercial,” “intellectual property” vs. “creative greater good,” and “copyright” vs. “licensing.” The philosophical implications of these words clearly depended on what roles panelists played in the creative economy, as did the preference as to whether copyright ambiguities be better defined, or remain vague and fungible… read more