This is a notable peice of news, it supports our view here of the creativity stifling effects of threatening to sue everyone just in case they infringed a copyright.
http://www.britac.ac.uk/news/release.asp?Newsid=219Existing UK law provides exemption from copyright for fair dealing with material for purposes of private study and non-commercial research, and for criticism and review. “There is, however, little clarity about the precise scope of these exemptions, and an absence of case law” said John Kay, who is Chair of the Working Group which oversaw the Review. “Publishers are risk-averse, and themselves defensive of existing copyrights.”
The situation is aggravated by the increasingly aggressive defence of copyright by commercial rights holders, and the growing role – most of all in music – of media businesses with no interest in or understanding of the needs of scholarship. It is also aggravated by the unsatisfactory EU Database Directive, which is at once vague and wide-ranging, and by the development of digital rights management systems, which may enable publishers to use technology to circumvent the exceptions to copyright which are contained in current legislation.
Its nice to hear that those who are interested in future creativity are speaking out against over-zealous rights holders who place their profit before the good of the nations youth
