Copyright Law - Hargreaves Report

[MrT]

Good news today, the coalition government has decided to implement the recommendations in the Hargreaves Report into Copyright and Intellectual Property to get the law on copyright into line with the digital age.
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipreview-finalreport.pdf

Lots of common sense in the report, but two items of great interest to many members of this community:

i) Copying of media from one format to another is to be made legal. If you buy a dvd, you will now be legally entitles to rip it to another format, provided it is for private use only.

ii) Orphan works, where the copyright owners are unknown or cannot be traced, should be allowed to be used. Chapter 4 of the report discusses orphan works in depth and this change alone could see hundreds, if not thousands of obscure films from the archives becoming more visible.

In C4 of the report the BFI is actually quoted in its submission as saying that if they were allowed to trade in orphan works they could significantly boost their income!

Interesting developments, many of which are long overdue and once implemented should bring considerable benfits to all concerned.

MrT

[GRAEME]

This looks like excellent news!

[Onedin]

Yeah.......saw that on BBC Brekkie this morning..............nice one!