Message from Director General Francis Gurry

World Intellectual Property Day, which we celebrate each year on April 26, is an opportunity to celebrate the creators and innovators who so enrich our world, and who are at the base of our cultural and technological development. This year our theme for World Intellectual Property Day is Digital Creativity: Culture Reimagined.

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Culture has already been reimagined through digital creativity. The whole way in which creative works are produced around the world, the sorts of works that are produced, the way they are distributed, and the way they are consumed or enjoyed worldwide has been reimagined as a consequence of digital technology.

(photo: WIPO).

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.

WIPO Director General Francis Gurry

The internet is a world stage. It provides an enormous opportunity for creators. Think of the evolution of the creator across the ages and the way in which creators and performers interact with their audiences. Once this interaction was confined to those who were within immediate earshot of the performance. 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. It is this opportunity which we want to celebrate on World Intellectual Property Day in 2016.

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, culturally and technologically, as a consequence of digital technology.

So please join us on World Intellectual Property Day, whether it’s at one of the numerous events that are being held around the world, or by participating through Facebook, Twitter, or other social media. And please join in this challenge of finding the right balance to reward the creators and innovators who enrich our lives, while at the same time ensuring the social benefit of widespread access to their works.