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Copyright law of the United Kingdom
The modern concept of
copyright
originated in the
United Kingdom, in
the year 1710, with
the
Statute of Anne
.
The current copyright law of the
United Kingdom
is to be
found in
the
Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988
(the 1988
Act), as
amended. This came into force
on 1 August 1989, for the most part, save
for some minor provisions
Various amendments have been made to
the original statute, mostly
originating from
European
Union
directives.
Works
eligible for
protection
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The types of work eligible
for copyright protection include a literary,
dramatic, artistic or musical work, the
typographical arrangement of a
published edition, a sound recording, a
film, or a broadcast.
[1]
Cinema films made before 1 June 1957,
the date on which the Copyright
Act
1956
[2]
came into force, are
not protected as film. They are either
protected as a dramatic work under the
Copyright Act 1911
(the 1911
Act) or as a series of photographs.
Wireless broadcasts prior to 1 June
1957 are not protected at all. The
1911
Act made no provision for them, as broadcasting
had not as yet
been invented when the
Act was passed. Broadcasts by cable prior to 1
January 1985 are not protected at all
either. Both the Acts of 1911 and
1956
made no provision for broadcasts by cable, as they
had not been
defined and protected as
either
Qualification for protection
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The 1911 Act provides that an
individual's work is automatically under
copyright, by operation of law, as soon
as it leaves his mind and is
embodied
in some physical form: be it a novel, a painting,
a musical work
written in manuscript,
or an architectural schematic. This remains the
legal position under the Schedules of
1956 Act and of the 1988 Act.
Once
reduced to physical form, provided it is an
original work (in the
sense of not
having been copied from an existing work), then
copyright
in it vests automatically in
(i.e. is owned by) the author: the person who
put the concept into material form.
There are exceptions to this rule,
depending upon the nature of the work,
if it was created in the course of
employment.
The question of
who is the
the author, is further
discussed below.
In order to grant
copyright protection to computer databases, UK
copyright law recognises the element of
labour and skill used in
compiling
them, even though they are not in truth original
works (being
entirely derived from
existing records),
[3]
applying a principle
called the 'Sweat
of the Brow' doctrine; they are also protected
by
database right
(see below).
The term 'Unfair
Use'
[4]
is sometimes applied
in that context, to refer
the use of a
work into which someone has invested a lot of
skill and
labour, but where little or
no originality is present. This is mainly in the
case of reproduction photography, or
the retouching of artistic works
are
out of copyright, or for simple computer
databases, such works
being original.
A work, other than a broadcast, can
qualify for copyright protection in
either of two ways: by the nationality
of the author, or by the country
of
first publication.
A work qualifies for
copyright protection, if made after 1 June 1957
(the date on which the Copyright Act
1956 came into force), if its
author
is:
1.
a British
citizen, a British dependent territories citizen,
a British
National
(Overseas),
a
British
subject,
or
a
British
protected
person,
or
2.
an individual resident or domiciled in
the United Kingdom, or in
another
country to which the qualification clause extends,
or
a
body
incorporated
under
the
law
of
a
part
of
the
United
or
another country to which the qualification clause
extends.
3.
Alternatively, a work can qualify for
copyright protection if its first
publication took place:
1.
2.
in the United Kingdom, or
in another country to which the
qualification clause extends.
However, a work made before 1 June 1957
can only qualify for
copyright
protection by its country of first publication;
not by the
author's nationality.
A broadcast, if made after 1 June 1957,
qualifies for protection if:
1.
2.
it is made from the United Kingdom,
or
it is made from another
country to which the qualification clause
extends.
Lists of
the countries which trigger qualification are
published
in
Statutory
Instruments
periodically. They are, in
point of fact, those
countries which
have acceeded to the
Berne Copyright
Convention
.
First publicatio
n
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First publication is defined as the
first occasion that a work is
published
anywhere. But if a work is simultaneously
published in
several countries, all
within a 30 day period,
each
of those countries is
treated as the
country of first publication.
For
example, if a work is first published in the
United Kingdom, but is
published in
Canada, Australia and New Zealand within the
following
30 days, all those countries
are treated under UK law as being the
country where the work was first
published.
This used to be of
importance, prior to 1957, for in those days first
publication was the only possible way
to obtain copyright. It became
much
less important due to the Copyright Act 1956,
which grants
copyright in the United
Kingdom to any work if the author is a British
citizen or is resident in Britain, or
is a citizen of (or resident in) a
Berne Convention country.
Copyright term
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Printed works
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The term of author's copyright under
the Copyright Act 1842 (which
protected
only printed works) was 42 years from the
publication of the
work, or the
lifetime of the author and 7 years thereafter,
whichever
was the longer.
In
the 1911 Act the term of author's copyright was
extended to the
lifetime of the author
and 50 years thereafter; this remained the case
under the 1956 Act and the 1988 Act.
The 1911 Act in effect extended the
meaning of
period of copyright applied
to all types of works, not merely printed
works.
Under the 1995
Regulations (set out below), the period of
author's
copyright was further
extended, to the lifetime of the author and 70
years thereafter. Those regulations
were retrospective: they extended
the
copyright period for all works which were then
still in copyright,
and
(controversially) revived the lapsed copyright of
all authors who
had died in the
previous 70 years, i.e. since 1925.
Accordingly, copyright in literary,
dramatic, musical and artistic works
currently expires 70 years from the end
of the calendar year of the
author's
death. Where the work has more than one author,
the
copyright expires 70 years after
the death of the last survivor of them.
The publisher's (separate) copyright,
in the typographical arrangement
of a
printed work, lasts for 25 years from the end of
the year in which
publication occurred.
This protects a publisher's copyright in all
printed
works: including books,
magazines, newspapers, and other
periodicals.
Other works
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Other works (such as sculpture,
architecture, etc.) will typically vary in
copyright term, depending whether the
author of the work is
anonymous. If the
author is unknown, the copyright period ends 70
years after the making of the work; or,
if during that period the work is
communicated to the public, 70 years
after that date. If the author of
the
work is identifiable, copyright in the work
expires 70 years after
the death of the
author.
In the case of a motion
picture, the period of copyright is determined
by the life of the principal director,
the author of the screenplay, the
author of the dialogue, and the
composer of any original music for the
film. If that person is not a national
of a
European Economic
Area
(EEA) country, and the
country of origin is not in the EEA (for
example, the United States of America),
the period of copyright is that
provided by the film's country of
origin, if that period is less than the
normal period under UK law. If a film
does not have any of the four
persons
mentioned above, the duration of its copyright is
50 years.
Computer generated artistic
works have a copyright protection of 50
years from creation of the work. As
with other such copyrights, if the
author is not an EEA national, and the
country of origin is not an EEA
state,
then the duration of the country of origin
applies, provided it
does not exceed
the normal period under UK law.
Broadcasts and sound recordings each
have a different period of
copyright:
as detailed in the sections below.