Are copyright laws out of date? The government thinks so…..

Due to the continued evolution of the internet, it seems that many of our existing laws are being adapted to accommodate the unique challenges that the online world presents. Often, this process involves a relaxing of UK laws to increase profitability of online businesses - but when does ‘relaxed’ become 'too relaxed'?

This question is dividing opinion following David Cameron’s announcement earlier this month that IP laws are to be reviewed to make them fit for the internet age.  He suggested that the law could be relaxed to be closer to the laws in the US, and to allow greater use of copyright material without the permission of the owner. He noted that the founders of Google ‘have said that they could never have started their company in Britain.’

Some internet campaigners have welcomed the announcement, saying that it will boost small businesses, whilst the film and music industries are likely to continue to resist reform.

UK law firm Taylor Wessing, meanwhile, has said that it does not believe that the Government can introduce a US-style fair use exemption without renegotiating the text of the European Copyright Directive 2001/29/EC, which sought to harmonise copyright law across Europe.

It remains to be seen whether the Government will achieve the right balance between accessibility and practicality. Professor Ian Hargreaves, the current chair of Digital Economy at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies and Cardiff Business School, will be leading the review.

Comments

[Peter]

The stuff about the "fair use" exemption made me think of the Gowers Review, which included quite a lot of stuff about fair use/fair dealing. Have a look at paragraphs 4.68 to 4.90 here:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/pbr06_gowers_report_755.pdf

Google were whinging about this then:

'Google explain in their response to the Call for Evidence: “The existence of a general fair use exception that can adapt to new technical environments may explain why the search engines first developed in the USA, where users were able to rely on flexible copyright exceptions, and not in the UK, where such uses would have been considered infringement”.'

I wonder what another review will find ...

[Emil A. Georgiev]

We all should welcome Cameron's approach and support it in order to achieve a new regulation on European level.