New Copyright Exceptions: breaking news

The Statutory Instruments to implement the updated copyright exceptions are experiencing mixed fortunes in Parliament. According to a statement from Lord Younger issued yesterday , three of the five are to be discussed by Parliament during the coming week and subject to Parliamentary approval they are on course to become law on 1^st June. These include the exceptions for copying into accessible formats for people with disabilities and all the exceptions relating directly to Education, Research and Libraries and Archives.

On the other hand, two of the Statutory Instruments have been held up because the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has further questions.  This delays the proposed new exception for Parody and Caricature including the Quotations exception (described here in a recent blog post) because it is included inthe same SI.

The new exception for private copying which is contained in a separate SI has also been held up by the Committee. The latter essentially covers copying to shift format for purely personal use, such as copying music from a CD you have purchased into an MP3 file for convenience.

While the private copying exception has little impact on our work at UCL, the new exceptions for Quotation and for Parody are potentially quite significant and quite helpful. We hope that this is just a delay which may push the timing back beyond 1^st June rather than a rejection of this SI.

Fingers crossed!