Copyright - what you can (and can't) do after 1 June 2014

There are changes to UK Copyright law which come into effect on 1 June 2014.  Here in the Whittaker Library, we are carefully reading up the details.  Impacting on several important aspects of performances, including research, education, disability, and libraries, you can understand our need to get a grasp of these changes!  Here is the introduction on the Intellectual Property Office website:-

Changes to copyright law and guidance

Changes to copyright law

"The government is making a series of small but important changes to copyright law to make it better suited for the digital age. These changes will affect how you can use content like books, music, films and photographs. They will also introduce greater freedoms in copyright law to allow third parties to use copyright works for a variety of economically and/or socially valuable purposes without the need to seek permission from copyright owners. Protections for the interests of copyright owners and creators are built in to the proposed changes.
"The government is committed to achieving strong, sustainable and balanced growth that is shared across the country and between industries. These changes are the result of extensive consultation with all interested parties. They will come into force on 1 June 2014."

(Intellectual Property Office ... Changes to copyright law and guidance - http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/hargreaves/hargreaves-copyright/hargreaves-copyright-techreview.htm accessed 18.04.2014)

In the UK, copyright law is changed by "Statutory Instruments". The forthcoming changes are made in five such statutory instruments. They affect performances in the following areas:- 

• Personal copies for private use
• Quotation and parody
• Disability
• Research, education, libraries and archives
• Administration

There are three IPO (Intellectual Property Office) online leaflets about educational, library and disability-related exceptions to the copyright legislation, which are very useful for us to know.  They're available in .pdf format:-

• Exceptions to copyright - Education and teaching 
• Exceptions to copyright - Libraries, archives and museums
• Exceptions to copyright - Accessible formats for disabled people
• NB - Accessible format copies can be made where no accessible format copy is 'commercially available on reasonable terms'.  

For a summary of all the changes, general readers are directed to this explanatory document.  In legal-speak, it's called an 'Explanatory Memorandum', so if anyone asks you where you read about this, then you would cite this:-

EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM TO THE COPYRIGHT AND RIGHTS IN PERFORMANCES ... AND ADMINISTRATION REGULATIONS 2014