The Right Balance On Conflicting Interest Of A Copyrights Owner And The Public

731 Words2 Pages

It has always been a challenging task to uphold the right balance on conflicting interest of a copyrights owner and the public especially when it comes to private copying. According to Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), creators have several exclusive rights they can exercise to restrict others from using their work. These include, amongst others, the reproduction right. This means that, in principle, any act of copying a protected work, including for example saving a copy of a song to an external hard drive, needs to be authorised by the rights holder. However, UK Copyright Law contains a ‘private copying’ exception which takes away the need to obtain such permission.

This situation can be seen in the case, Musicians’ Union (MU), the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors and others (BASCA) v Secretary of State for Business Innovation & Skills (2015), where a new exception to copyright that has been introduced recently in UK, known as The Copyright and Rights in Performances (Personal Copies for Private Use) Regulations 2014 that implemented the Article 5 of Directive 2001/29/EC, however omitting the compensation part has been challenge for a judicial review. The application was on the basis that the new private copying act does not include a method for fairly compensating rights holders for the act of private copying as part of the new regime, in line with Directive 2001/29/EC, art 5(2)(b) .

This essay will analyse the case and the possible outcome and impact of the decision of the case especially under copyright exception itself.

Background

To understand the issues and how the problems arise, it is necessary to understand the historical events and the fundamentals that lead t...

... middle of paper ...

...issuing, renting and lending copies to the public.

Copyright grants an automatic right to a creator of an “original” work; be it an individual or company. “Original” is usually associated with something new or not done before; it is in a primary type or form, from which others are derived. Copyright only provides protection to something original to the author. Thus, “the sine qua non of copyright is originality. Interpretation of originality is related to the independent creation rather than the idea behind the creation. Unlike patent, a copyright is not a monopoly but rather; it is a right of protection against copying. Thus, works that expresses an idea may be protected but not the idea behind it as per the case of Mazer v Stein . This is also stipulated in Article 9(2) of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement (TRIPS).

More about The Right Balance On Conflicting Interest Of A Copyrights Owner And The Public

Open Document