What you can and can't do ...
In our last blog post, we discussed the requirements for copyright infringement to come about under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. However, there is a range of fair use exceptions and limitations to copyright infringement in the CDPA …
In general terms, this is called either Fair Usage or Fair Dealing. The CDPA calls it fair dealing and lists a number of exceptions with respect to specific uses:
reporting current events
criticism or review (as in ‘theatre review’ rather than ‘re-watching’)
quotation
parody
caricature
pastiche
For all of these exceptions, the dealing must be seen as fair. UK courts and judges have explained that they will look to the objective standards of a ‘good and honest person’ in order to establish if the act was fair.
Furthermore, the law will also ask, “is the alleged fair dealing in fact commercially competing with the proprietor’s exploitation of the copyrighted work? If it is, the fair dealing defence will fail”
The vast majority of copyright infringements arise from either reporting of current events or in use for quotation purposes. Individuals use clips from news channels without realising that they could be overstepping these fair dealings exceptions.
