Shock, awe: British government agrees that copyright has gone too far: "
The British government today
pledged (PDF) to enact significant changes to copyright law, including orphan works reforms and the introduction of new copyright exceptions. And the tone of the comments was surprising: the government agrees that 'copyright currently over-regulates to the detriment of the UK.' CD (and perhaps DVD) ripping for personal use
should become legal at last—and the government is even keen to see that the consumer rights granted by law can't simply be taken away by contract (such as a "EULA" sticker on a CD demanding that a disk not be ripped).
Responding to an independent study done earlier this year, the government has also endorsed the creation of a digital copyright exchange to facilitate licensing. Within limits, the government endorses the view that 'the widest possible exceptions to copyright within the existing EU framework are likely to be beneficial to the UK.'
The government's report is also significant for what it pledges
not to do. The government says it will not bring forward the 'site blocking' provisions of last year's
Digital Economy Act. This is evidently not referring to the power of copyright holders to
compel individual ISPs to block infringing sites after a lawsuit, but to a more comprehensive system whereby the government maintains a list of sites that all ISPs in the country would be required to block.
