UK copyright law is about to get a digital makeover as number of reforms have been put forward by The Hargreaves Report.
The report requested by British Prime minister David Cameron looks at reforming many of the UK's copyright laws that are outdated in the Internet age.
The report doesn't do recommend anything particularly groundbreaking or as radical as some people asked for. What it does do is brink the UK more in line with Europe, US and the Internet age. Though in some instances it doesn't go as far as the US as the rest of Europe would need to come into line first.
The report goes through several things but there are two pieces of change that I think will change the digital landscape in a significant way but more for the consumer than possibly the industry.
First is what is known as the legalization of format shifting for personal use. We all do this, its when copy a CD to our computer to put on our MP3 Players. So for all the years the UK has been doing this its been technically illegally.
The change though makes an interesting new loop whole that allows you to copy your DVD's legally to your computer too. Now this has always been a fuzzy area of law as the movie industry fight losing money in the way the music industry did. I have to say though the Music industry is now stronger creatively for the digital downloads and part of the benifit has been the ability to continue growing music collections rather than re-purchasing. I deliberately look out for DVD's with a digital download included but very few have this in UK but Blue-ray does. I'd be happy to bay £1 to get a digital version of my DVD but I wouldn't want to re-buy my full 100 plus DVD's at £7-15 each, if i did I'd never buy new films again. So the change in law would benifit the consumer but what about the industry, only time will tell.
The second intriguing part of the Hargreaves Report is the proposal of a formation of a Digital Copyright Exchange to act as a "one-stop shop" to make it easier to get clearance for the use of copyrighted content. This is a big change it'll allow more of the back catalog of media onto television and internet. Like the MCPRS pays artists and performers for their work the Digital Copyright Exchange will do the same for those pieces of work where the owners can't be found straight away.
I look forward to seeing what develops form this report and I think the UK and eventually hopefully the world will become better for it.
The report requested by British Prime minister David Cameron looks at reforming many of the UK's copyright laws that are outdated in the Internet age.
The report doesn't do recommend anything particularly groundbreaking or as radical as some people asked for. What it does do is brink the UK more in line with Europe, US and the Internet age. Though in some instances it doesn't go as far as the US as the rest of Europe would need to come into line first.
The report goes through several things but there are two pieces of change that I think will change the digital landscape in a significant way but more for the consumer than possibly the industry.
First is what is known as the legalization of format shifting for personal use. We all do this, its when copy a CD to our computer to put on our MP3 Players. So for all the years the UK has been doing this its been technically illegally.
The change though makes an interesting new loop whole that allows you to copy your DVD's legally to your computer too. Now this has always been a fuzzy area of law as the movie industry fight losing money in the way the music industry did. I have to say though the Music industry is now stronger creatively for the digital downloads and part of the benifit has been the ability to continue growing music collections rather than re-purchasing. I deliberately look out for DVD's with a digital download included but very few have this in UK but Blue-ray does. I'd be happy to bay £1 to get a digital version of my DVD but I wouldn't want to re-buy my full 100 plus DVD's at £7-15 each, if i did I'd never buy new films again. So the change in law would benifit the consumer but what about the industry, only time will tell.
The second intriguing part of the Hargreaves Report is the proposal of a formation of a Digital Copyright Exchange to act as a "one-stop shop" to make it easier to get clearance for the use of copyrighted content. This is a big change it'll allow more of the back catalog of media onto television and internet. Like the MCPRS pays artists and performers for their work the Digital Copyright Exchange will do the same for those pieces of work where the owners can't be found straight away.
I look forward to seeing what develops form this report and I think the UK and eventually hopefully the world will become better for it.
