On World Intellectual Property Day, UN agency spotlights role of digital creativity

In a message marking World Intellectual Property Day, whose theme this year is Digital Creativity: Culture Reimagined, WIPO Director General Francis Gurry stressed that that the Day, which is celebrated each year on 26 April, is an opportunity to celebrate the creators and innovators who enrich our world, and who are at the base of our cultural and technological development.

“On this day, as we celebrate digital creativity across the world, we should also think about how to find the right balance – one which recognizes the importance of creators and innovators to all the progress that we see ... as a consequence of digital technology,” he said.

Gurry noted that the internet provides an enormous opportunity for creators to interact directly with their audiences – an interaction that was previously more confined.

“Now, with the Internet, the audience has become potentially the whole world. That is an enormous creative opportunity. It's an enormous cultural opportunity. And it's an enormous economic opportunity,” he said.

WIPO, a specialized agency of the UN, is a global forum for intellectual property policy, services, information and cooperation. World Intellectual Property Day, which has been observed since 2000, marks the day in 1970 when the convention establishing WIPO entered into force.

Photo: WIPO/Emmanuel Berrod.