ADA Copyright Forum 2021

In 2020, Dr Ali Akbari joined KPMG as the Artificial Intelligence Capability Lead in KPMG’s Innovation, Solutions & Ventures team. He focuses on practical applications of AI and machine learning to real world problems and operationalising them at scale. He has been in the IT industry since 2000 and holds a PhD in Computer Vision from Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Ali specialises in unstructured data and image processing, risk management and real-time decisioning using a range of AI/ML technologies. He has been involved in using AI and advanced analytics to build capabilities and the creation of strategic plans to identify and explore business opportunities.

Throughout his career, Ali has worked in Japan and Australia and delivered projects across the APAC region. He has diverse experience across various sectors that include manufacturing, health, finance and the public sector. He participates in creating AI ethics frameworks and is a member of Standards Australia sub-committee on AI standardisation.

Prior to KPMG, Ali led the delivery of multiple complex solutions for a major Australian bank, as well as a leading manufacturer of automated visual inspection machinery, and an international information technology and security firm.

Margaret Allen PSM, FALIA has been the CEO and State Librarian of the State Library of Western Australia since 2004. The State Library has responsibility to collect, preserve and make available Western Australia’s documentary history as well as a leadership role with WA’s network of 233 public libraries. The State Library’s Better Beginnings program is recognised as Australia’s most innovative and extensive family literacy program reaching more than 650,000 families since its inception.

Margaret’s professional achievements include Chair of the IFLA eLending Working Group, Chair of the Australian Libraries Copyright Committee (ALCC), Board member of the Australian Digital Alliance, past President of the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), member of the Public Lending Right Committee, member of the ALIA Book Industry and eLending Advisory Group, Secretary of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Public Libraries Section and member of the IFLA Governing Board (2015–2017). Margaret was awarded a Public Service Medal in 2018 for outstanding public services to the library sector.

Dr Virginia (Ginny) Barbour is Director of Open Access Australasia (formerly the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group) and is Co-Lead, Office for Scholarly Communications, Queensland University of Technology (QUT). In 2004, she was one of the three founding editors of PLOS Medicine. She was Chair of the Committee on Publication Ethics from 2012-2017. She has been involved over the years with many Open Access, publishing, and ethics initiatives including the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) the Cochrane Library Oversight Committee, and as a Plan S Ambassador. She writes for The Conversation. She is on the NHMRC’s Research Quality Steering Committee.

Her ORCID profile is here http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2358-2440

Martin Borchert is an experienced leader with over 15 years in senior roles and is the University Librarian at UNSW Sydney where he was appointed to the position in June 2016. In this role, Martin nurtures strong partnerships to build upon the work and reputation of the UNSW Library. He is working to further develop services, resources and facilities which support students, HDR candidates, academic staff and community members in attaining their academic, professional and personal goals and the goals of the university. The Library focuses on delivering efficient and effective, digital, scalable and engaging library services. He is a strong advocate for transformation in scholarly communication via open access, open science and open infrastructure.

Emeritus Professor Tom Cochrane is currently Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia. He was formerly, (until retiring from the position in December 2013), Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Vice-President) at QUT. In his current role, Professor Cochrane’s external duties include: Director, Australian Digital Alliance; Deputy Chair, Library Board of Queensland, and member a Copyright Reference Group for Universities Australia. He has also been co-leader of the Creative Commons project for which QUT is the institutional partner for Australia. This project, together with other open access initiatives locally based at QUT, signals a long standing commitment to improving access to research outputs and the supporting infrastructure worldwide. This is part of a wider general commitment to promoting access to knowledge and a fair go for every person in the copyright ecosystem.

Trina Ha is the Director of the Legal Department at IPOS where she manages the legal affairs of the IP office as well as advising on and reviewing IP legislation and international agreements. She is also the joint head of the Copyright Review Taskforce by IPOS and the Ministry of Law. In addition, Trina holds the following concurrent appointments

• Head, IP Management (Government) where she leads a team of consultants to render IP management related advice and services to public agencies
• Senior Faculty of the IP Academy, the training arm of IPOS.

Prior to joining public service, Trina was in private practice where she specialised in matters involving the protection, management and exploitation of intellectual property rights, particularly in the field of Entertainment and the Arts. She was legal adviser to various industry associations such as the Games Exchange Alliance and the Asian Film Archive. Trina co-authored the volume on Media Law published by Butterworths as the first title in the series of Singapore Precedents and Forms. During her time in legal practice, she was ranked annually since 2007 in the intellectual property industry and TMT industry by the Asia Pacific Legal 500.

Trish Hepworth is the Director of Policy and Education at the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA). She is currently leading the Professional Pathways Initiative to ensure a diverse, skilled, valued and supported LIS workforce delivering quality library and information services that anticipate and meet the needs of the community. Trish has previously worked across corporate, government and not-for-profit sectors in Australia and overseas, leading teams in policy development, research, and advocacy. She is passionate about delivering results that make a beneficial difference in the world, whether that is securing copyright law reform for libraries or developing and delivering health promotion projects. 

Charlton has over 20 years experience in the music, television, advertising and branding industries in an array of roles ranging from major recording artist, studio manager, music and post-production audio supervisor, copyright consultant and actor. 

In 2010, Hill partnered with international music producer/composer Justin Shave to co-found Uncanny Valley – a high end, music branding company that has quickly risen to prominence in both Australia and Asia. With a foot firmly planted in both art and commerce, Charlton is now Head of Music and Innovation at Uncanny Valley. 

Turning their focus to tech, Uncanny Valley now pursue AI innovative solutions in the emotive, music and sound arena. 

Dr Emily Hudson is Reader in Law at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, and also serves as the School’s Director of Undergraduate Studies and Chair of Assessments. Emily joined King’s in January 2015, having previously held academic posts at the University of Melbourne, University of Queensland and University of Oxford. Emily’s monograph, Drafting Copyright Exceptions: From the Law in Books to the Law in Action (CUP, 2020) showcases her work on copyright law as it relates to cultural and educational institutions, and ties this work to broader themes in relation to legal drafting, the decision-making of non-legal users, and social norms. 

Olivia Lanchester has worked as a senior intellectual property lawyer in private practice and as a freelance editor. Prior to becoming CEO, she ran the ASA‘s Contract Assessment Service and has reviewed hundreds of publishing contracts during her time with the ASA. She is passionate about informing ASA members on their rights and optimising the contractual position of writers and illustrators. Olivia is deeply interested in copyright reform and coordinates the ASA’s advocacy on copyright, unfair contracts and digital lending rights. She is also the ASA’s Company Secretary and a director of the Australian Copyright Council.

Cynthia Love is a member of the Information Management & Technology executive that delivers IT services, scientific computing and information services to CSIRO. She is responsible for Information Services. This covers Library Services, Records Services, Research Data Services, Information Governance and Information Services Applications. Her background is in libraries however over the years this has expanded to the broader information management environment and the development of strategies associated with it. In the last year Cynthia and her team have been negotiating transformative agreements with publishers which is the beginning of a program to introduce Open Access to CSIRO’s publication outputs. A number of these agreements are the first of their kind in Australia and New Zealand.

Dr Rita Matulionyte is an expert in intellectual property and technology law, with her most recent research focusing on legal and regulatory issues surrounding Artificial Intelligence. Rita has almost 40 research papers published by leading international publishers and was invited to present her research in conferences in Europe, US, Japan, Hong Kong and Australia. She has prepared expert reports for the European Commission, the European Patent Office, and for the governments of South Korea and Lithuania. She sits at the management committee of the Australian Society for Computers and Law (AUSCL) and is an active member of Intellectual Property Society for Australia and New Zealand (IPSANZ).

Kirsty Murray is a multi-award-winning author of more than 20 books for children and young adults. Her works include eleven novels as well as non-fiction, junior fiction, historical fiction, speculative fiction and picture books. Her books are widely studied in schools and universities and are published internationally. Her most recent release, Strangers on Country, was co-authored with Dave Hartley and is shortlisted for the 2021 CBCA Book of the Year Awards. Kirsty is a director on the board of both the Australian Society of Authors and the Copyright Agency.

Caroline has an extensive history of content production and media – most notably working for 20 years with Australian science communicator and broadcaster Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki, producing books, radio, print media and online content. Caroline has spent many years producing to assist in communicating complex science information to the broader public. 

Caroline started life as a sound engineer, mixing front of house sound for Australian indie pop bands.

Since joining Uncanny Valley, Caroline has focused on, and manages, innovation and strategic partnerships and is furthering collaboration with academic and industry partners with focus on new business and emerging music and audio technologies. 

Ben Rice is a lawyer with a background in copyright, public policy and government affairs. He comes to the ADA having worked for Policy Australia as a lawyer and Eloquium as a policy advisor. He has extensive experience conducting research, providing advice, writing submissions in response to government consultations, engaging with stakeholders and monitoring developments in intellectual property, digital technologies and media law. Ben holds a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) from the University of Technology, Sydney and is completing a Masters in Public Policy (Economics) at the University of Sydney.

Andrew Stammer is Director of CSIRO Publishing. His publishing career began in 1989. He has worked in various roles including commissioning and marketing. He joined CSIRO Publishing in 1997 as Marketing Manager. He has also performed roles as Journals Publisher and Executive Manager for CSIRO’s Communications team. He has held the Director’s position since 2012.

Andrew has served on the Board of the International Association of STM Publishers since 2017. He is on the Board of Directors of the Australian Publishers Association (APA) and he is convenor of the Scholarly and Journals Committee for the APA.

Liz is Policy Director, Copyright at Universities Australia. Liz has always had a keen interest in copyright both as a creator and as a user. Her undergraduate degree is in music composition from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and her postgraduate degree is in intellectual property law from the University of Technology Sydney. Prior to joining Universities Australia Liz worked extensively in music licensing at APRA AMCOS, held roles in corporate marketing, worked on spectrum licensing at the ACMA and continued to maintain her work as a freelance composer and writer.

Robyn van Dyk is Head of the Australian War Memorial’s Research Centre. Her work involves leading the development, management and preservation of the Memorial’s archival and published collections. Robyn is a strong advocate for copyright reform in the cultural sector delivering submissions to government, conference papers and published articles on the issues. Robyn has worked in collaboration with members of cultural institutions to achieve broader public access to national collections through finding solutions for orphan works and defining and explaining the use of the exception s 200AB. This work has played a significant role in delivering mass digitisation, crowd source projects, social media, exhibition, data creation, visualisation and linking. Robyn has played a role in lobbying for some of the recent hard won changes in the Act with the Copyright (Disabilities and Other Measures) Act passed 15 June 2017.

Robin Wright is the Manager, Acquisitions, Records and Copyright at Swinburne University of Technology. She has worked at the intersection of copyright law and digital technologies in cultural and education policy and practice for over twenty years. In the 1990s at Cinemedia (now the Australian Centre for the Moving Image) Robin managed research that explored the potential for delivering educational video over the then emerging internet. More recently she worked as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Media & Communications Law at Melbourne Law School. She has made submissions to government on copyright law reform, spoken at national and international conferences on copyright and digital libraries and published on copyright exceptions and digitisation in cultural organisations. Robin has extensive experience in the statutory and commercial licensing of educational resources in the Australian Higher Education sector and the use of open educational resources. She was project leader for the Open Education Licensing research project that produced a toolkit to assist educators with the use and creation of open content. Robin has worked in cultural organisations in Australia and the UK and practiced as a solicitor in Victoria. She holds a BMus, MA and LLB (Hons).