The Intellectual Property Office has published a report looking at the available penalties under the criminal justice system for copyright infringement. The report focusses in particular on the differences between the penalties available for online infringement as opposed to “traditional” copyright infringement. Recommendations are made for balancing up the available penalties and it sheds an interesting light on the existing criminal provisions.

There is a forthcoming event which should be of great interest to information professional with responsibility for copyright issues. CILIP, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals is running an Executive Briefing covering the “Latest developments in Copyright: Legislation and Licensing” on Wednesday 1st April. 

Last year’s event, which focussed especially on the new and updated exceptions to copyright was invaluable for those of us needing to understand the changes to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This year the keynote speaker is Dr Ros Lynch, Director, Copyright Enforcement at the UK Intellectual Property Office. Will Dr Lynch talk about the Government’s strange decision not to implement the planned changes to the anachronistic 2039 copyright term which catches a vast number of older unpublished works (see previous blog posts)? We shall see!

The other speakers are all members of the Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance (LACA), representing between them a wealth of knowledge and experience of copyright matters.