Modernising The Exceptions To Copyright: The Government Consults On The Draft Amendments

Last December in the document Modernising Copyright the government set out its decisions to amend some of the current exceptions to copyright protection and to add some new ones. The Intellectual Property Office has now published - for technical consideration only - the draft amendments to the relevant sections of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Anyone wishing to make comments to the IPO on the draft provisions should note the deadlines for doing so: 17 July for those dealing with private copying, parody, quotation and public administration; 2 August for those dealing with education, research, libraries and archives, and data analysis for non-commercial research.

The amendments will cover:

Private copying

A new exception will allow an individual to copy content that they own, and which they acquired lawfully, onto another medium or device for their own personal use. That copy will become an infringing copy if it is transferred to another person, or if the copy from which it is made is so transferred. Unlike in most other European countries, this will not be accompanied by a levy on recording equipment to provide a revenue stream to copyright owners. Instead, copyright owners must derive their compensation from the point of sale. If the content which a person has acquired includes a technological protection measure to prevent the making of a copy, a person may not circumvent that in order to make a copy. They may, however, complain to the Secretary of State, who may order that the protective measure be removed. A person may store their copy in any private place, including a private cloud or other remote electronic storage. Any contract term purporting to restrict or prevent copying as permitted by the new exception will be unenforceable. Parody

A new exception will allow creators to make minor uses of other people's copyright material for purposes of parody, caricature or pastiche. The exception requires that the use should be fair dealing, a concept whose parameters have been delineated by the courts rather than by statute and are consequently not self-evident. As in the case of private copying, any contract term purporting to restrict or prevent the creation of a parody, caricature or pastiche as permitted by the exception would be unenforceable. It should also be remembered that the moral rights of the creator of the original work may be infringed by parody, and care must also be taken not to falsely attribute a work to an...