Copyright infringement will mean tougher penalties
Following the publication of the Digital Britain Report, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has outlined proposals to improve the rules governing copyright licensing while increasing the financial penalties for online infringers.
The changes will include:
- Legislative changes to license orphan works. Legislation will effectively deal with this issue in order to remove the infringement risk that currently prevents collecting societies licensing orphan works (arising as they do not have a mandate from the rights holder.)This will benefit cultural organisations by allowing them access to currently unusable material. It will also enable public access to a great number of historical works that are currently locked up.
- New powers for government to authorise collecting societies to set up extended licensing schemes. This will allow certain collecting societies to act for a group of rights holders even if they are not all members of the society, unless a specific rights holder has opted out of the scheme.
- Underpinning the operation of collecting societies. As collecting societies reach out to new groups of customers, we need to underpin their operations with a statutory backed framework.
- Consultation on improving operations of collecting societies. Government would not make recommendations to utilise the above powers without formal public consultation with stakeholders and other interested parties.
- Matched penalties for online and physical IP infringement. This proposal will introduce a statutory maximum penalty of £50,000 for all IP offences.
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