Copyright odds and ends

The most recent issue of the Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property, published by Edward Elgar Publishing, is now available to subscribers online and in printed format. As usual, one major feature in the issue is available on open access and can thus be devoured with enjoyment by even non-subscribers. This issue's free-to-access feature is the Herchel Smith Intellectual Property Lecture 2014, "The need for a new Copyright Act: a case study in law reform", delivered by Sir Richard Arnold, a prominent member of the Patents Court, England and Wales and an active member of the IP community whose participation in debate and discussion at all levels over the past years has been very much appreciated. The abstract of this Lecture runs like this:

There were three United Kingdom Copyright Acts in the twentieth century. It is now 26 years since the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 was passed. The major thesis of this lecture is that it is time for a new Copyright Act. The minor thesis is that we need to re-think our approach to copyright law reform. Both theses are illustrated by the history of UK copyright legislation over the last 140 years.

You can read the text of the lecture in full by clicking here.

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The King's College London Distance Learning programme, "UK, EU & US Copyright Law" which leads to either a Postgraduate Diploma or a Masters Degree, is open for applications for its next run, which starts on 1 October 2015. This blogger has written about its apparent popularity on the IPKat weblog here.  Anyone who wants further details of it should click here.

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Via the eagle-eyed Chris Torrero comes a quick word about "Copyright Notice: Public Exhibition of Copyright Works", another in the recent series of United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Notices which don't have binding legal force and are not per se authoritative but do reflect official thinking.  It explains that, for example,

In the UK, public exhibition is not an act restricted by copyright. This means that it is not an infringement of copyright to put a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work on public display (for example, in a display cabinet in a museum or gallery).

Despite it being lawful to exhibit a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, it would usually be an infringement of copyright to perform such a work in public. This means that, although a musical or dramatic work in the form of writing or notation can be put on display (for example, the script of a play or a piece of sheet music), the public performance of such a work would be restricted by copyright. The term “performance” would include delivery of the work in lectures, addresses, speeches or sermons, as well as any mode of visual or acoustic presentation.

Likewise, playing or showing a sound recording, film or broadcast in a public place would usually be an infringement of copyright.

However, certain exceptions to the public performance right exist. For example, educational establishments are permitted to perform, play or show copyright works without infringing copyright, provided it is done for the purposes of instruction and the audience is solely composed of individuals directly connected to the establishment (namely staff and students).

You can access the document in full here. Source: http://web.docuticker.com/go/docubase/72458