IPKat broke the news this Monday that revised draft Statutory Instruments for Personal Copies for Private Use and Quotation and Parody copyright exceptions have been released by the government.
As readers may recall, in March this year, five draft legislations (covering Personal Copies for Private Use, Quotation and Parody, Disability, Public Administration and Research, Education, Libraries and Archives) were published that were to modernise UK copyright law. These were slated to become law on 1 June 2014. However, in May, it emerged that two of these exceptions, Private Use and Parody (arguably the two most important sets of changes), would be considered at a later stage.
Now, the amended draft legislation on these two outstanding exceptions has been published. So what has actually changed?
Personal Copies for Private Use – Other than the commencement date change from 1 June 2014 to 1 October 2014 in section 1(1), the only change is the correction of a typo in section (2): “The Act is amended in accordance with regulations 3 and 4″.
Quotation and Parody – The only change is to the commencement date change from 1 June 2014 to 1 October 2014 in section 1.
Perhaps the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments just needed more time to think about the impact of the new exceptions and it’s good to see that the largely un-amended text is back on the agenda.
Links to comparisons of the draft legislation can be found here for Private Copying and here for Parody.
Laurence Lai 10 June 2014
Looks like the footnotes have been renumbered too! But I agree, it does feel like they needed more time to reflect on the implications – despite the extensive consultation that led to the drafting and the fact that they had already gone through committee review!