Legislation and enforcement

What is the relevant legislation?

The main copyright legislation in the UK is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), which has been amended by other legislation on numerous occasions since it came into force on 1 August 1989.

The United Kingdom is also currently a member of the European Union and, therefore, UK law should be in accordance with the various European Union directives that impact on copyright, such as the Copyright Directive 2001/29/EC (sometimes called the Information Society Directive) and the Software Directive 2009/24/EC.

Enforcement authorities

Who enforces it?

There are a number of public bodies which have powers of enforcement of relevant criminal offences in the UK, including local weights and measures authorities (Trading Standards), the Office of Fair Trading and the police. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs also has powers to seize pirated goods entering the UK.

However, in many cases, copyright will need to be enforced by the copyright owner, an exclusive licensee or, in some circumstances, a non-exclusive licensee or representative body, either through a private criminal prosecution or, more usually, civil proceedings.

Online and digital regulation

Are there any specific provisions of your copyright laws that address the digital exploitation of works? Are there separate statutory provisions that do so?

The reproduction right is defined as copying a work ‘in any material form’ and is said to include ‘storing the work in any electronic means’ (section 17(2), CDPA).

Making copyright works available over the internet will infringe UK law which provides for a communication right for all categories of copyright-protected work which includes the making available to the public of the work by electronic transmission in such a way that members of the public may access it from a place and at a time individually chosen by them (sometimes referred to as the on-demand right (section 20, CDPA)).

The Digital Economy Act 2010 also provides for a number of measures to reduce copyright infringement caused by file sharing on the internet.

The role of intermediaries and internet service providers (ISPs), which enable or facilitate the digital exploitation of works, is addressed in the Copyright Directive 2001/29/EC and Electronic Commerce Directive 2000/31/EC. The Copyright Directive provides that rights holders should be able to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by third parties to infringe copyright. The Electronic Commerce Directive states that an ISP or other service provider that stores information provided by a recipient of the service will not be liable for the information stored unless they have knowledge of infringing material and providing that, upon obtaining such knowledge, they act expeditiously to remove the information.