The 1988 Copyright, Designs And Patent Act?
Posted by Copyright Law Enquirer on July 18th, 2009 at 10:25pm
The 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patent Act gives total protection to the creator of an original work. Write an essay in which you:
Argue that such protection may be, albeit perversely, over restrictive
(what do they mean by albeit perversely, over restrictive , it sounds like old English)
Under copyright act
2 Comments for The 1988 Copyright, Designs And Patent Act?
1. emanwelg | July 19th, 2009 at 5:01 am
They mean that you have to argue that the protection might wrongly be too restrictive.
Issues you’ll want to cover:
Duration of Protection – too long? There’s a good article by the late Mr Justice Laddie on this, there’s also the Gowers report arguing against extension of copyright protection terms.
Limited Exceptions – Unlike other systems, CDPA provides a few limited statutory exceptions (rather than one big vague exception). You might consider there these exceptions are too narrow, or have failed to keep pace with changes in technology. You might also consider the scope of the common law exceptions preserved by CDPA. The narrowing of the “repair” exception in Mars v Teknowledge would seem to be particularly relevant.
Depth of Protection – there may be room to argue that protection goes to deep (though not much of an arguement) based on the appearance of cases like the Da Vinci Code case.
Policy Arguements – you could attempt to argue that the protection is too strong and extensive, on the grounds that it no longer represents a fair deal for the public (assuming that your reader follows the view that copyright is a state granted monoply, existing to further public-interest goals), because it restricts the spread of copyright material too much in the process of incentivising the creation of new copyright material.
Ansell, CDPA isn’t perfect – just because you disagree it doesn’t mean there aren’t issues to be considered.
2. Jackson P | July 19th, 2009 at 5:31 am
Sounds like whoever set the question does not agree with the protection the act affords artists and writers.
What they appear to be asking is that because of the act it is restricting the freedom to copy and distribute others work. Which is the whole point of the act.
Five words would suffice for that essay. “It is not over restrictive”
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