[FC-discuss] UK Fair Use?

[Timothy Cowlishaw]

On 13 May 2007, at 15:58, Ringo Kamens wrote:

> Thanks. That clears a lot up for me. So basically, the name is fair
> dealing instead of fair use but it's basically the same law.

I'm afraid it's not quite - Fair dealing is much more limited than US  
fair use, and  AFAIK basically only amounts to a very limited set of  
exceptions and limitations allowing the copying of a limited portion  
of a work (i forget the precise wording of this) for educational use  
(but organised education, rather than private study). We haven't even  
got a private / backup copying exception currently, so the millions  
of UK iPod owners are effectively criminals (including deputy prime  
minister John Prescott).

So basically, no, we have nothing which can really be considered to  
be fair use in the UK, IMO. However, there was a goverment- 
commissioned report published last year (The Gowers Review of  
Intellectual Property), which, although none of the reccomendations  
have made it into legislation yet (and might not at all), included  
reccomendations for the establishment of limitations and exceptions  
allowing: copying for the purposes of time and space-shifting and  
backups, and transformative fair use for the purpose of parody and  
criticism), so the idea of UK fair use is at least something that the  
government are aware of. For the time being though, we've got nothing.

This is all from memory, so might not be entirely accurate - Rob  
Myers is probably the best person to advise you on these sort of things!

Cheers,

Tim