Mixed messages on copyright reform

The end of last month saw the celebration of World Intellectual Property Day.  Admittedly it is not a high profile event in most calendars but nevertheless, it is well worth celebrating a mechanism that allows creators to derive a livelihood from the works they produce; written, spoken, built or otherwise.

The Publishers Association chief executive Richard Mollet used the opportunity to critique the UK’s ongoing efforts to alter copyright law in UK and the latest controversy over copyright exceptions, a topic the NLA has covered before on this blog. 

A number of bodies have pointed out problems relating to text and data mining and the contract override provision.  One concern relating to the contract override is that it can contradict existing law and make it unclear which rule relating to the copying and use of a particular piece of content has supremacy over the other.  As Richard notes government changes have a “glaring ambiguity in a law which simultaneously appears to both allow and disallow the restriction of the act of copying.”

The new rules are being hurried through with limited scrutiny by parliamentarians a mechanism called a statutory instrument. As a side note for the politically uninitiated these have a chequered use by Government to push through controversial laws in a hurry (see Henry Porter circa 2009).

Whilst not directly affected by the issues immediately to hand, we certainly have sympathy with the Publishers Association and others in the music industry. 

We hope the Government will consider the concerns raised by the UK’s creative community.  It should ensure that new powers to introduce legislation by statutory instrument do not fall into the old trap of hurrying on legislation in a way that might undermine what, according to independent observers, is presently one of Europes’ best functioning IP and copyright regimes.