On 23rd May 2012 Mr Vince Cable the Government's Business Secretary presented the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill 2012/13 to Parliament. The Bill includes some copyright and design-related provisions. Principal amongst these is the repeal of Section 52 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 ("CDPA"). This will be welcomed by designers who have long complained of the unfairness of Section 52 CDPA.
Section 52 CDPA
This limits the duration of copyright to 25 years for artistic works that have been exploited (with the copyright owner's consent) by the making of articles, using an industrial process, to the copyright design. An artistic work under CDPA means (a) a graphic work, photograph, sculpture or collage, irrespective of artistic quality, (b) a work of architecture being a building or a model for a building, or (c) a work of artistic craftsmanship.
An article is considered to have been made using an industrial process when more than 50 articles are made. The period of copyright protection is 25 years from when the exploitation occurs.
Duration of other Copyright
By comparison the duration of copyright in most other forms of protected works, such as literary, dramatic and musical works is the creator's life plus 70 years.
Repeal of Section 52
As a result of this Bill designers of artistic works will enjoy the same period of protection as other copyright works. The repeal of Section 52 will bring the UK copyright law into line with virtually all other European countries. The repeal is not retrospective.
Other design provisions
The Bill also enables the copyright exceptions set out in CDPA to be amended by Secondary legislation. It remains to be seen what changes might be made and how this power will be used. This follows on from the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property and Growth published in May 2011. The Review identified five exceptions as being important to economic growth namely, exceptions for format-shifting, parody, non-commercial research and library archiving and an exception to support text and data analytics.
The Bill has now commenced its passage through both Houses of Parliament and is therefore subject to the will of Parliament, but it is to be hoped, on behalf of designers, that the repeal of Section 52 passes into law.
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