News In Focus
16 April 2009
UK copyright laws under attack
The UK’s copyright laws have been rated “the worst, by far’” in a survey of 16 countries, beating the emerging economies of both Thailand and Argentina to last place, say Consumer Focus.
The survey looked at how well each country’s copyright law balances the interests of rights holders with those of consumers. Large Asian countries dominate the top positions with both India and South Korea both scoring highly.
Consumer Focus says millions of unsuspecting UK consumers are being needlessly criminalised by out of date intellectual property laws. It is currently a copyright violation to rip a CD that you own on to your PC or iPod – even though over half (55 per cent) of British consumers admit to doing it and three in five (59 per cent) think this type of copying (format shifting) is perfectly legal.
Consumer Focus is calling for the Government to introduce of a broad ‘Fair Use’ exception to UK copyright law which would be able to adapt to new technical environments over time – an approach already adopted by the US, who came fourth in the survey.
Ed Mayo, chief executive of Consumer Focus, said: “UK copyright law is the oldest but also the most out of date. It’s time our copyright law caught up with the real world.”