UKIE to respond to Government Copyright Consultation

 
UKIE will be responding to the Government’s Consultation on the recommendations from last year’s Hargreaves Review of the UK’s Copyright system. Professor Ian Hargreaves published his Independent review of IP & growth in May 2011. The review made 10 recommendations to change the UK's copyright system and the current consultation is to gather relevant evidence regarding the effectiveness and practicality of introducing them.
 
The consultation will close on March 21st and the government will respond and make proposals for legislation or other action in an ‘IP and Growth White Paper‘ in Spring 2012.
 
UKIE shall be consulting its members on this consultation. If you would like to provide input to the UKIE response please contact daniel.wood@ukie.org.uk
 
The consultation contains several elements of potential relevance to the games industry - the main areas are summarised below:
 
1. Copyright Exceptions
There are already a number of exceptions to copyright that allow limited use of copyright works without the permission of the copyright owner. One of the lead recommendations from the Hargreaves review was to see if there was scope for more of these to be introduced. The current consultation recognises that any UK change in this area is restricted by the EU Copyright Directive, Berne Convention and TRIPS agreement. The government however ‘intends to explore the scope for widening copyright exceptions within EU law, with a view to modernising and opening up copyright exceptions to the maximum degree' and will also play an active role in pushing for change at EU level.
 
A new exception is proposed which will allows people to ‘copy creative content for private, non-commercial use ‘which will be technology, format and platform neutral, permitting private copying of any type of copyright work to any type of device or medium.’ An unrestricted exception is rejected because of the harm it would do to rights holders and the consequent need for a compensatory levy on electronic devices or blank media, as already exists in some EU states. Views are sought on possible implementation of such an exception.
 
One of the few references to ‘computer programs’ is in relation to circumventing technological protection measures. It says that ‘an individual who wishes to access media (not including computer programs) in order to take advantage of existing copyright exceptions, but cannot do so due to these measures, can complain to the Secretary of State if the copyright owner does not make an accessible copy of the work available to them voluntarily.’ The consultation asks if this system should be extended to cover those availing of a private copying exception.
 
2. Copyright Notices
The consultation is also asking for thoughts on a new proposed statutory role for the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), requiring it to issue general 'Notices' on areas where there is manifest confusion or misunderstanding on the scope of UK copyright law. This would formalise the existing role of the IPO in answering around 1000 detailed queries each year. The ‘Notices‘ would deal with questions of fact but not of interpretation and could be considered by the courts as authoritative sources of copyright clarification in court cases. The IPO would have a statutory duty to reply to queries received. The government seeks views about the potential benefits of a Notice system, how it should operate and what sort of queries and issues it should cover. The government also seeks to gauge the demand for a dispute resolution system for copyright issues run by the IPO.
 
3. Collecting Societies
The government is calling for an improvement of accountability and transparency amongst societies. This is to be achieved by the introduction by societies of self-regulatory codes of conduct which are to contain minimum standards to be set and published in advance by the government. The codes of conduct must come into existence within a year of the publication of the minimum standards and will deal with the following issues: obligations to rightsholders, obligations to licensees, conduct of employees and agents, information and transparency, complaints procedures and an ombudsman who would review operation of the code. The government expresses the view that the UK should be a leader in the area of collective licensing.

4. Orphan Works
Views are sought on a scheme, which would allow ‘orphan works’ (i.e. copyright content where the owner was unknown) to be used with necessary safeguards for both the owners of orphan works and rights holders e.g. after a "diligent search" has been carried out and confirmed by an ‘authorising body’, such as a collecting society.
 
5. Extended Collective Licensing
The government seeks views on its proposals to simplify the rights clearance system through the introduction via legislation of a voluntary extended collective licensing (ECL) scheme, which would allow authorised collecting societies to license on behalf of all rights holders in a particular sector, except for those who choose to opt out. This authorisation would be subject to certain criteria being met by the collecting society. The intention is that ECL could also be used for the mass clearance of collections of works which may include orphan works and out of commerce works. The government welcomes views from collecting societies, rights holders and other organisations that regularly need to use large bundles of copyright works.