Prime Minister David Cameron announced last week that the UK’s intellectual copyright laws are to be reviewed to “make them for the internet age” and said that the law could be relaxed to allow greater use of copyright material.
Speaking at an event in the East End of London, at which he announced a series of investments by IT companies, the Prime Minister noted that companies like Google in the US benefit from “fair-use” copyright provisions, which means that copiers can do what they like with copyright works as long as what they do does not stop the copyright owner from making sales.
However, in the UK currently, people who copy can only do what copyright law says they can, which makes copyright reform more difficult here than in the US. Indeed, Google’s founders told the Government that they could not have started their company in the UK.
Mr Cameron has said that he wants to encourage the sort of creative innovation in the UK that exists in America and his announcement will be welcomed by internet campaigners, who say that the reforms will benefit small businesses in particular.
The review, which will report next April, will look at what the UK can learn from American rules on the use of copyright material without the rights holder’s permission.
The review will also look at removing some of the potential barriers that stand in the way of new internet-based business models, such as the cost of obtaining permission from rights holders and the cost and complexity of enforcing intellectual property rights in the UK and internationally.
It will also look at the interaction between intellectual property and competition law and how to make it easier for small businesses to protect and exploit their intellectual property.