The Content Map: can you spread the word?

From our friend Désirée Fields (Associate, McDermott Will & Emery UK LLP) comes news of a project that ran out of funds just at the wrong time:

"The MarkMonitor Spring Symposium, which took place on 23 April 2013 at BAFTA, was an enlightening day with presentations about developments in the area of online brand protection.

Richard Mollet of the Publishers Association spoke about digital publishing and infringements and various initiatives to combat the illegal downloading of digital content. One of the key developments that Mr Mollet was keen to highlight was “The Content Map”.

The Content Map was developed by members of the Alliance for Intellectual Property and is funded by the BPI (The Recorded Music Industry), Industry Trust for IP Awareness, Premier League, Publishers Association and UK Interactive Entertainment. The website – www.thecontentmap.com – went live in November 2012.

According to its website, 

“The Content Map is a site designed to showcase the wealth of legal services available to consumers, across films and tv, ebooks, music, games and sports sectors.” 

In essence, it is a tool which allows consumers to find out where they can legally acquire digital content and to help consumers weed out the illegal sites from those which are legal. In addition, the site contains a useful section in which FAQs are answered as well as a section explaining the jargon around online downloading and copyright. Helpfully, The Content Map also explains to consumers that just because a website charges for accessing digital content does not necessarily mean that it is legal.

The Content Map does not contain every website which offers legal content from these various industries.  However, it is intended to be updated on a regular basis by representatives from each of the various sectors.

So you never heard of The Content Map? According to Mr Mollet, this is due to the fact that the entire budget which was allocated to the project was consumed in the creation of the actual website so that there were no longer any funds available to promote and raise consumer awareness of The Content Map. This is rather unfortunate given the brilliant concept behind the project. Luckily, in the days of social media and blogging, there are certainly other avenues to spread the word"