This chapter discusses the commercial exploitation of copyright, both in a domestic and in a European context. It covers the Crown copyright in the UK; commercial exploitation of copyright in the UK; and exploitation under European law, i.e. friction with the free movement of goods and competition law.
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This chapter provides a brief summary of the discussions on copyright. It covers the roots of copyright; the various types of work that attract copyright protection; and the duration of copyright protection.
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This chapter considers the ‘economic rights’ the copyright owner enjoys while copyright protection endures. These are the rights that the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) calls ‘acts restricted by copyright’, which may be exploited by transferring them to others or licensing others to use them for a price. The chapter discusses the rights flowing from ownership of copyright and the international framework that underpins them, noting the influence upon UK law of a number of EU Directives. It identifies the general principles pertaining to infringement of economic rights, before turning to the detailed rules on each economic right: to make copies, issue copies to the public; rent or lend commercially to the public; perform, show, or play in public; communication to the public; and make adaptations. It discusses authorisation of infringement (accessory liability) in relation to these economic rights, and finally considers secondary infringement of copyright.
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This chapter discusses the qualification requirement for copyright protection in the UK. The UK copyright system is based on the principle of national treatment contained in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works 1886, in the Universal Copyright Convention, and in the TRIPS Agreement. This requires that authors connected with another member state are to be treated in the same way as a member state’s own authors and should receive the same copyright protection. That connection with a member state might be provided in two ways: the author may have a personal relationship with the member state, or the work may be first published in that member state.
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This chapter discusses the duration of copyright protection in the UK. The basic rule is that the term of copyright has been harmonized at life of the author plus 70 years in the EU. The basic rule applies to the original category of works (literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works) and to films. Entrepreneurial works, such as sound recordings and broadcasts, receive 50 years of copyright protection. Performances fixated in a phonogram will in future be protected for 70 years. The term of protection for typographical arrangements is 25 years.
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This chapter first discusses the two roots of copyright. On the one hand, copyright began as an exclusive right to make copies—that is, to reproduce the work of an author. This entrepreneurial side of copyright is linked in with the invention of the printing press, which made it much easier to copy a literary work and, for the first time, permitted the entrepreneur to make multiple identical copies. On the other hand, it became vital to protect the author now that his or her work could be copied much more easily and in much higher numbers. The chapter then outlines the key concepts on which copyright is based.
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L. Bently, B. Sherman, D. Gangjee, and P. Johnson
This chapter deals with the conditions under which copyright law might protect designs as well as the limitations on the term of design protection. It first considers the subsistence of copyright in designs via two routes: either directly, by protecting the form and decoration of articles as artistic works (particularly sculptures, engravings, or works of artistic craftsmanship), or indirectly, by protecting the author of a preliminary document on which a design is based. It then discusses section 52 of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which limited the term of protection of copyright for mass-produced designs to twenty-five years, and its demise.
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All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing able students with a stand-alone resource. Copyright refers to a set of exclusive rights in relation to cultural works such as literature, newspapers, photographs, drawings, artworks, films, music, and plays, and also extends to less obviously aesthetic creations, such as computer programs and databases. This chapter discusses the history, justifications, and sources of UK copyright law as well as the requirements for copyright protection. The requirements for protection that are explored are subject matter, originality,and fixation. The impact of EU copyright law on these UK requirements is examined.
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This chapter discusses the law on designs. The underlying idea behind the law on designs is that it involves two distinct elements: an article or product and some added ingredient, a design feature, which enhances the appearance of the article. It is the design feature, the added matter, which receives legal protection, not the product itself. The chapter then deals with the five principal means available to protect the appearance of a product: UK registered design; UK unregistered design right; UK copyright; EU registered design; and EU unregistered design. Thus, a designer who wishes to acquire protection for the appearance of an article under UK and/or EU law has several options. To add to the complexity, various aspects of the design can be protected by registered designs, unregistered designs, and copyright. The outcome is that a designer could end up with several different layers of protection.
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L. Bently, B. Sherman, D. Gangjee, and P. Johnson
This chapter explores the criteria that are applied to determine the validity of a design —whether a registered design in the UK and the European Union or an unregistered Community design: the design must be ‘new’; the design must have ‘individual character’; the applicant or the right holder must be entitled to the protected design; and the design must not conflict with earlier relevant rights (including earlier design applications, copyright, trade mark rights, and rights relating to certain types of emblem). The factors to take into account to determine the novelty of a design, such as prior art, are also considered. The chapter concludes by looking at relative grounds for design invalidity.
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Databases form a vitally important part of the information society. The traditional approach in the United Kingdom has been to protect their contents as compilations under the law of copyright. This contrasts with the approach adopted in civil law states which have historically required a more significant qualitative element as a condition for the award of copyright than has been the case in the United Kingdom. Databases would not meet this requirement – although many states would offer protection under unfair competition laws. The European Union’s database directive strikes something of a compromise between the two approaches. The chapter will consider the extent of the sui generis database right and consider its practical application in the, albeit limited, number of cases in which it has been considered by the courts.
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This chapter discusses the law on unregistered designs. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 defines unregistered designs as the design of any aspect of the shape or configuration (whether internal or external) of the whole, or part, of an item. In order to secure protection, such a design must be original, in the sense that it should not be commonplace in the design field in question at the time of its creation. Unregistered design rights roughly offer 15 years of protection, during which the right holder has the exclusive right to reproduce the design for commercial purposes. Infringement consists in anyone making an item to the design without authorization and in the making of a design document that records the design for the purposes of enabling someone else to make items to it, again without authorization.
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All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing able students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter discusses design protection in the UK and EU and the impact of the UK’s departure from the EU on this protection. In particular, it traces the history of industrial design protection before turning to examine in detail the registered designs and unregistered design right systems. The chapter also analyses the relationship between copyright and industrial designs, the tensions that arise from this interrelationship, and how this interface will be regulated in future under UK law.
