Court Rejects Plan To Broadcast Tenenbaum Trial

UK Found To Be The Worst At Balancing Consumer Rights In Copyright Law

from the just-as-the-industry-would-like dept

Thu, Apr 16th 2009 10:20pm — Mike Masnick

As we've pointed out recently, the industries that rely on copyright have a habit of claiming that copyright is solely about protecting the interests and rights of copyright holders, leaving out the equally as important rights of the public as well. That's partly why we've seen copyright getting pushed increasingly towards the interests of industry. A consumers rights group has looked over copyright law in various countries and has found that the UK's is the absolute worst in terms of actually protecting the rights of consumers, and notes that rather than fixing things, it appears that the UK has given in to industry's desires to make the laws even worse. Hopefully, at some point, politicians will finally start to realize that copyright is a bargain between the public and content creators, and that continually handing over more and more rights to the content creators harms the public interest.

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Filed Under: copyright, uk, users' rights

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Frosty840, 16 Apr 2009 @ 11:25pm

"Hopefully, at some point, politicians will finally start to realize"
I'll stop you there. UK politicians don't realise anything they're not paid to realise. Try looking up the recent stories about MPs' expenses. These people have been bought and paid for and they're not about to ruin the good thing they've got going.
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Chris Swain, 16 Apr 2009 @ 11:35pm

UK Govt. vs the People
'Hopefully, at some point, politicians will finally start to realize that copyright is a bargain between the public and content creators, and that continually handing over more and more rights to the content creators harms the public interest.'

Hmmm, I admire your optimism but given the recent Digital Britain report and the fact that the Estblishment/Media/Entertainment axes are the ones at the heart of UK Govt policy and thinking (vis. Lloyd Weber's recent rant in the House of Lords) I doubt it very much.

The 'Mother(expletive?) of Parliaments' appears to have an increasingly cynical view of the British public, as evidenced by the endless recent leaks about its inner workings, and to be fair, the public view the body politic in much the same vein.

Our executive is unelected (that is how Lloyd Weber became a lord and has the right to sit in our upper house), we have no constitution and the unelected head of state considers us to be her subjects yet long ago gave any real politcal power to the venal, duplicitous political/administrative classes who run things today.
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Daniel Morritt, 17 Apr 2009 @ 12:54am

T.I.E. (This Is England, blatant Blood Diamond ripoff :))

We're the country that struggle to publicly celebrate Christmas since we're too politically correct, celebrating Christmas *may* offend someone, and we can't have that.

So of course, we have no problem writing new laws to give power over masses to the few.

And we don't complain about it, it's not very British.
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JP_Fife, 17 Apr 2009 @ 1:53am

Look on the bright side, the content creators will get so much rights soon the public wont have the right to buy copyrighted material anymore as the rights holder will keep everything under lock and key and they'll be the only ones able to view it. The consequence of that being that they'll accuse themselves of pirating their own work.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2009 @ 2:06am

Unfortunately - this is a fact that UK citizens know all too well...but when you have an Orwellian-style Prime Minister like Gordon Brown in charge, there's little hope until the next 'regime change'. However, Britains do very little to help themselves in terms of protest - that's why our current prime minister (who was never democratically elected to his position either in house or by public vote) is still in the job. Looking for consumer protection or rights? Nothing to see in the U.K. - please move on.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2009 @ 3:18am

And yet, it's one of the most creative music scenes on the planet. Mike, your problem is that you know you want to get rid of copyright, but your argument to gain support for you cause keeps changing, all the while attempting to represent a consumer voice. Good luck, mate, but you aren't representing my voice as a consumer, because I know what I want and it sure isn't what you're promoting.
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Chris Swain, 17 Apr 2009 @ 3:14pm

Re: most creative music scene on the planet
Copyright has bugger all to do with any creativity in the UK music scene, the creative acts aren't the ones who are living off royalties from overplayed twaddle that they produced years ago, yet its the has beens who whinge about protecting copyright here.

The best of the UK music scene seems to occur when the artists are rebelling against the status quo. There was a brilliant documentary about Rough Trade and the genesis of the UK indy scene on BBC Four recently.

Perhaps the creativity stems from the fact that we know that the establishment is out to stiff us and therefore we have something to rebel against? Are you sure you are a consumer Anonymous Coward? Are you sure you're not an industry shill?
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