Following some fear [here and here] that UK Government could have decided not to introduce exceptions for private copying, broader quotation and parody into UK copyright after all, last month this blog reported that the "missing" exceptions were back with new [well, not so new as they were basically unchanged] draft Statutory Instruments (SIs) [here and here].

Following approval in the House of Commons earlier this month, yesterday at around 6:15 pm [as the illustrious and learned Katfriend who told this Kat specified] the House of Lords also approved the draft SIs [you can read an early statement from the Open Rights Group here].

This means that, following the bunch of other exceptions [research, education, libraries and archives; disability; and public administration] that entered into force on 1 June last, also these new exceptions are now scheduled for entry into force. This will be on 1 October 2014.

Coordinated enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights—copyright, patents and trade marks—has been an elusive goal for Europe. Back in 2005, the European Commission struggled to introduce a directive known as IPRED2 that would criminalize commercial-scale IP infringements, but abandoned the attempt in 2010 due to jurisdictional problems. IP maximalists took another run at it through ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, but that misguided treaty was roundly defeated in 2012 when the European Parliament rejected it, 478 votes to 39.

Undeterred, the European Commission is trying once again. This time, it is trying to avoid a similarly humiliating defeat in Parliament by focusing on non-legislative strategies. But its effort to sidestep Parliament also means less political or judicial oversight. So it behooves us to take a close look at what is being proposed.

This is a short educational video on how to share downloaded digital content legally using Creative Commons licenses. For more information on Creative Commons licenses or on how you can help, please visit https://creativecommons.org