Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill receives Royal Assent
Finally! The moment everybody was waiting for has come: today the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill (ERRB) received Royal Assent.
This new piece of legislation (a detailed implementation timetable of which will be published on the BIS website shortly) contains a bit of everything: from directors' pay to whistle blowing protection, from the creation of a new Competition and Markets Authority (this shall bring together the competition functions of the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission) to important copyright provisions.
Speaking of the latter, as explained in the BIS press release, the ERRB is intended to
"modernise the UK’s copyright regime to promote innovation in the design industry, encouraging investment in new products while strengthening copyright protections. Creating a level playing field for collecting societies and the thousands of small businesses and organisations who deal with them by strengthening the existing regulatory regime. For the first time orphan works will be licensed for use; these are copyrighted works for which the owner of the copyright is unknown or can’t be found. There will also be a system for extended collective licensing of copyright works".
While this Kat and Merpel have not yet had the time to digest the new provisions, apparently (and among other things) the final version of the bill is such as to require UK museums to pay upfront for orphan images, or images whose copyright owners cannot be found, after an amendment to the ERRB to limit proposals was narrowly defeated in the House of Lords.
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| If she manages not to fall asleep by 9 pm, Merpel will spend the night pondering the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill |
“The great cultural institutions of our country hold tens of millions of orphan works in their collections”. Paying for each of them in advance “would be an impossible, as well as an inappropriate, burden”.
On the other side of the orphan work debate, it is worth recalling that a few days ago photographer David Bailey wrote to George Osborne MP criticising HM Government's approach and also asking a question which might have crossed the minds of others, too: "Why can't copyright be dealt with properly in a proper Copyright Bill?"
On the other side of the orphan work debate, it is worth recalling that a few days ago photographer David Bailey wrote to George Osborne MP criticising HM Government's approach and also asking a question which might have crossed the minds of others, too: "Why can't copyright be dealt with properly in a proper Copyright Bill?"
