Posted by Peter H on October 07, 2007 at 21:39:00 from 86.130.129.140 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Copyright etc. posted by Laurence Monkhouse on October 07, 2007 at 17:05:03:
I do think we ought to keep right off any other sort of politics
I don't think that's always possible, Laurence, although I agree that head-to-head full-agenda confrontations don't really belong here. The whole point about the EU Directive affecting UK copyright law is that it caused a great deal of disruption in publishing and connected areas. When the extension from 50 to 70 years came into force, much material which had ceased to be copyrighted suddenly became copyright again. Where 60 years had elapsed since the author's death, often the material was being freely used as being non-copyright. But then, old copyright licences had to be revived, permissions sought and payments made. The UK transitional legislation did try to deal with these situations, but there was still much confusion. It was a mess, and it is what you may get when you force one country to attune its laws to the laws of another country or countries. I don't regard it as 'political' to point this out.