Government Opposes Mash-up Copyright Exemption
20 November 2012
There should be no new exemption from copyright law for users’ adaptations of copyright-protected content, the UK government has said. To create such an exemption for user-generated content would ignore the rights of content creators, it said.
The government’s opposition, as reported at Pinsent Masons’ Out-Law.com newsletter, came in response to consultation paper published by the European Commission on copyright reform. That consultation asks whether the European Union’s Copyright Directive should be amended to introduce exemptions for “user-created content.” User-created content can include individuals’ use of professionally-produced music, film, video or images for a new or different purpose to the original.
“The suggestion for an exemption for user-created content seems to create a distinction between those who use and those who create works, which in many cases is not justified,” said the government’s response to the Commission’s consultation.
“Another significant concern is the extent to which such an exemption might allow others to use the works in a way that the existing rights holders do not approve of and the impact that exemptions in this area might have on remuneration,” it said.
The government suggested that legislators focus more on improving licensing of material by copyright owners to allow other people to make works using parts of their content. It said that companies had already found some success in negotiating such agreements themselves.
