Under the law of the United Kingdom, a copyright is an intangible property right subsisting in certain qualifying subject matter.
[needs update] On 12 September 2018, the European Parliament approved new copyright rules to help secure the rights of writers and musicians.
[1] Copyright protection in Britain dates back to the 1556 Charter of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers.
5. c. 46) codified the state of copyright law for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the rest of the British Empire.
[4] For Britain and Northern Ireland, the protections are now governed by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which came into force on 1 August 1989, apart from some of its minor provisions.
[6] As the law currently stands, the United Kingdom has a closed-list system: copyright only subsists in the certain enumerated subject matter.
It is possible for contracts of employment to contain express assignment clauses or to otherwise deal with the ownership of any intellectual property rights created by an employee.
In order to grant copyright protection to computer databases, UK copyright law recognises the element of labour and skill used in compiling them, even though they are not in truth original works (being entirely derived from existing records),[20] applying a principle sometimes called the 'Sweat of the Brow' doctrine; they are also protected by database right (see below).
A broadcast, if made after 1 June 1957, qualifies for protection if: Lists of the countries which trigger qualification are published in Statutory Instruments periodically.
The normal practice of British law would have been to freeze the extension, applying it only to new works, rather than reviving expired copyrights.
But its effects, in the main, merely a continuation of the existing law on broadcast copyright, on the same terms as established in the 1956 Act, while adding protection for the new technology of cable television.
The effect is that it is not an infringement of copyright to record or copy a radio broadcast, made on or after 1 January 1959, unless it is done for commercial purposes (i.e. for payment).
However, in 2003, the 1988 Act was amended to exclude commercial research from the definition of fair dealing because of the restrictions provided for by the Information Society Directive (2001).
Also before the 2014 amendments to UK copyright law fair dealing for research only covered literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works.
For a long time, the legal position of services such as Internet caches was dubious under British law, with such copies technically being infringing.
In 2014 as a result of the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property and Growth the exceptions for the visually impaired were updated to allow copying by people with any cognitive or physical disability.
They include exceptions for illustration for teaching, and preservation, as well as librarians being able to facilitate fair dealing for the users of a library who are physically located elsewhere.
The power to hold and exercise all rights and privileges in connection with prerogative Crown copyright is managed by His Majesty's Stationery Office.
This right – which is separate from a copyright – is a remnant of the Crown's historical monopoly over all printing and publishing in the United Kingdom.
This is because there will generally be minimal scope for a creator to exercise free and creative choices if their aim is simply to make a faithful reproduction of an existing work.A November 2023 Appeal Court judgement (THJ v. Sheridan, 2023) by Lord Justice Arnold clarified that, in the UK, no new copyright is created in making a photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional public domain artwork, and that this has been the case since 2009.
It also means that the role of government in passing copyright laws, on behalf of citizens, remains relevant as the activities allowed by statute cannot be disallowed by private contracts.
[40]: 277 Under UK law, freedom of panorama covers all buildings as well as most three-dimensional works such as sculptures that are permanently situated in a public place.
In that case, some examples were given of typical articles that might be considered works of artistic craftsmanship, including hand-painted tiles, stained glass, wrought iron gates, and the products of high-class printing, bookbinding, cutlery, needlework and cabinet-making.
A sale is only regarded as a resale if the price of the work being sold is greater than 1,000 and either the seller or buyer is acting in the capacity of a professional art dealer.
A common practice to obtain evidence in favour of authorship is to place the copyrighted material in an envelope or package together with a document signed by several people stating that they have examined the work prior to it being sealed and that in their opinion it is original.
Once this process is complete the package and contents might be usable in a court of law as evidence of the date of creation (and so priority), if the envelope had been in the custody of a solicitor throughout.
[48] In December 2006, the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property was published, and the government began a public consultation period on proposals to legalise personal copying.
In January 2008 the government proposed changes to copyright law that would legalise format shifting for personal use under some limited circumstances.
These statutory instruments updated the exceptions and limitations to the rights of performers and copyright around Research, Education, Libraries and Archives; Disability; and Public Administration.
The existing exception for fair dealing for instruction purposes is extended to include copying small amounts of material using modern technology, rather than just by hand.