New copyright parody exception too weak to create change needed

03.08.2011

 New copyright parody exception too weak to create change needed to help UK creators

  The new permission to create parodies falls short of what Britain needs to trigger major incentives for new types of copyright works.

  Under the new 'parody' exception announced today, only certain categories of copying previously banned eg spoof fan fiction eg 'Bored of the Rings' and 'Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody' and newspaper cartoons parodying photos or other images will now be allowed.

  Examples of the type of copying that would still be not permitted would be contemporary equivalents to:

  Picasso's Las Meninas painting - based on a Velazquez original (only permitted because Velazquez was out of copyright)

  West Side Story - based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in turn based on Ovid's Pyramus and Thisbe (only permitted because both Shakespeare and Ovid were out of copyright)

  Andy Warhol's paintings from photographs of Elizabeth Taylor.

 In the USA, the famous Barrack Obama 'Hope' poster was subject to court action by Associated Press who owned the copyright in the original source photograph. This kind of derivative work will remain unlawful both in the US and the UK.

  Robin Fry copyright partner at law firm Beachcroft said: "It's a pity that the government has not moved to a complete 'fair use' permission or even something more radical.  If we were really determined to liberate creativity in the UK then we should have a general permission to create something new based on another work provided it does not affect the economic value of the original. An exemption for 'derivative' works on this basis would have been truly radical.

  "The government declares that 'the widest possible exceptions to copyright within the existing EU framework are likely to be beneficial to the UK' and that 'the areas where copyright restricts activity to no direct commercial benefit as doubly wasteful: neither new opportunities nor incentive to invest in copyright works result from them.' but just introducing an exception just for parody really isn't enough to create the sea change needed.

  "For too long, rights owners have had too much power, demanding increasing periods and extent of protection. But these demands have had a depressing - not an encouraging - effect on creativity. Copyright law has been no laughing matter and it seems like it still is."