Get prepared for a radical overhaul of copyright laws in the UK. Recently, the country's copyright laws were reviewed and now the
report has been filed with proposed changes. The new amendments are likely to make the law more amenable to the digital age. The report, prepared by Professor Ian Hargreaves, enumerates various points which render UK copyright laws obsolete. Now that the report has been presented to the Prime Minister, we can expect some swift actions.
Professor Hargreaves has duly noted, "We have found that the UK’s intellectual property framework, especially with regard to copyright, is falling behind what is needed.” One of the major issues being discussed involves copying of digital media. The report seeks to legalize copying the media for personal use. It may also allow people to format shift, which means that you can copy your content to various devices. Professor Hargreaves articulated, "It is difficult for anyone to understand why it is legal to lend a friend a book, but not a digital music file. This puts the law into confusion and disrepute. It is not a tenable state of affairs." We fully concur.
The report also touches upon other issues such as access to orphan content, where it is not possible to trace copyright holder. The issue was brought to the fore with Google's attempt to digitize such books. The overall thrust of the report is to make the UK laws more modern and thus making it more powerful. However, it is not the first time such overhaul has been attempted. Earlier, in 2006, similar proposals were made by Gowers Review, but the proposed amendments never got to see the light of the day. Let's hope this time it does not meet the same fate.