Copyright Law

• The lecture on Intellectual Property Law today was very interesting with the topic on no other than the very controversial, "copyright". It started of with a brief explanation of copyright, succinctly summarised as an unshared right or authority granted by the law to the author of an original work to do certain things with it like, issue copies to the general public, make an adaptation of it etc. The lecture moved on to the historical background of copyright law in the United Kingdom, stating a number of laws that have subsequently come into existence since the first ever copyright Statute of Anne in 1709. Amongst these were the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works 1886, Universal Copyright Convention 1952, Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), Database Directive 1996 and Information Society Directive 2001. Although copyright law originated from the Statute of Anne, the current basis for copyright law is the CDPA 1988 which has also been amended to incorporate the European Union directives in this area of law.

  
  

  Under the CDPA, s1(1) clearly outlines works that are protected, to be: original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, sound recordings, films, broadcasts and typographical arrangement of published editions. Section 3 goes further to express what constitutes a literary, dramatic or musical work whilst section 4 states what artistic works include for the purposes of the Act. Sections 9 and 11 deals with the issue of ownership of copyright and section 12-15 is concerned with the duration of the protection granted under the Act. Having given a brief introduction, the main issue which got me thinking was the sub topic of infringement of a copyright. Section 16 clearly specifies that the owner's rights in relation to the work include : making a copy of it, issuing copies to the public, performing,showing or playing it in public and making an adaptation of it. Thus, under section 17-21, it is considered a primary infringement of a copyright if one does any of the acts in s16. Of utmost concern to most of my colleagues was the first right mentioned, ie; copying an original work. It soon became a hot topic as questions came flooding in.

  
  

  One question asked was the one that applied to virtually all university students and that was if photocopying pages of a textbook or journal etc, amounted to infringement. The answer given was that it all depended on the purpose for which it was being used as there were certain exceptions detailed in part II of the Act, one of which included things done for educational  purposes. However, the drawback in this exception is found in section 32 (1) which states that, "copyright in a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work is not infringed by its being copied in the course of instruction or in the preparation of instruction, provided the copying is a) done by a person giving or receiving instruction, b) is not done by means of a reprographic process and c) is accompanied by sufficient acknowledgement and provided the instruction is for a non comercial purpose" (see http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/32).

  
  

  Another obvious issue which was raised was that universities all over must therefore be in breach of that section as most works are either photocopied or downloaded electronically and the fact that the "instructions" taking place are definitely for commercial purposes. The lecturer clarified that universities do have some kind of arrangement with authors albeit contractual in nature but then again, it would normally include permission from authors. So far, it does make me wonder if universities have a contractual agreement with every single author if his/her work can be found in these universities. Surely, that would be a very wide scope to cover as it would also have to be done for all electronical works aswell and it would be a very difficult task to accomplish. This has made me realise that there are alot of things which we do everyday which could literally amount to infringement on another's copyright even if done innocently as under the Act, infringement includes transient copies aswell. For example just watching a video on youtube could constitute "transient" copying and therefore infringement. Who will win in the war: authors' interest versus public interest or will they be balanced out by the courts? This is something I look forward to finding out over the next few weeks in the course.