Copyright law of the United Kingdom

Under the law of the United Kingdom, a copyright is an intangible property right subsisting in certain qualifying subject matter. Copyright law is governed by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended from time to time. As a result of increasing legal integration and harmonisation throughout the European Union a complete picture of the law can only be acquired through recourse to EU jurisprudence, On 12 September 2018, the European Parliament approved new copyright rules to help secure the rights of writers and musicians.

Background

Copyright protection in Britain dates back to the 1556 Charter of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers.
The Licensing of the Press Act 1662 gave publishers exclusive printing rights, but did not give any rights to authors.
Parliament failed to renew the Act in 1694, primarily to remove monopoly and encourage a free press.
The modern concept of copyright originated in Great Britain, in the year 1710, with the Statute of Anne. This Act prescribed a copyright term of fourteen years, and let the author renew for another fourteen years, after which the work went into the public domain. Over the years, additional acts and case law steadily refined the definitions of what could be protected, including derivative works, and the degree of protection given. Under the Copyright Act 1842 the copyright period lasted for the lifetime of the author plus 7 years, or for 42 years from first publication, whichever was longer.
The Copyright Act 1911 codified the state of copyright law for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the rest of the British Empire, and extended the copyright term to life of the author plus 50 years. The Copyright Act 1956 extended protection to film. For Britain and Northern Ireland, the protections are now governed by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which came into force on 1 August 1989, apart from some of its minor provisions. Amendments have been made to it, mostly originating from the Copyright law of the European Union, and the laws have been interpreted by case law. Copyright was amended again in 1995, extending the term of copyright to life of the author plus 70 years.

Framework

Subsistence: Does copyright subsist in the proposed subject matter?
Ownership: Is the claimant the owner of the copyright? If so, is the claimant a sole or joint owner?
Incidents of ownership: What rights flow from ownership? What is the term of the owner's monopoly?
Infringement: Has there been primary or secondary infringement?
* Primary infringement: Has the defendant committed a 'restricted act' without the consent of the owner?
* Secondary infringement: Has the defendant committed an act amounting to secondary infringement; for example, possessed or sold an infringing article in the course of business?
Defences: Does the defendant have a defence?
Remedies: What is the appropriate remedy for the infringement?
Subsistence of copyright

Copyright arises automatically, without the need for registration. As the law currently stands, the United Kingdom has a closed-list system: copyright only subsists in the certain enumerated subject matter. The eight classes of subject matter are listed in section 1 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. It is a fundamental principle of copyright law that copyright subsists in the expression of an idea, not in an idea itself.

Qualification for protection

The 1911 Act provides that an individual's work is automatically under copyright, by operation of law, as soon as it leaves their mind and is embodied in some physical form: be it a novel, a painting, a musical work written in manuscript, or an architectural schematic. This remains the legal position under the Schedules of the 1956 Act and of the 1988 Act.
Once reduced to physical form, provided it is an original work, then the copyright in it vests automatically in the author: the person who put the concept into material form. There are exceptions to this rule, depending upon the nature of the work, if it was created in the course of employment.
In order to grant copyright protection to computer databases, UK copyright law recognises the element of labour and skill used in compiling them, even though they are not in truth original works, applying a principle sometimes called the 'Sweat of the Brow' doctrine; they are also protected by database right.
The term 'Unfair Use' is sometimes applied in that context, to refer to the use of a work into which someone has invested a lot of skill and labour, but where little or no originality is present. This is mainly in the case of reproduction photography, or the retouching of artistic works that are out of copyright, or for simple computer databases, such works not being original.
A work, other than a broadcast, can qualify for copyright protection in either of two ways: by the nationality of the author, or by the country of first publication.
A work qualifies for copyright protection if made after 1 June 1957, if its author is:

a British citizen, a British dependent territories citizen, a British National, a British subject, a British protected person, or
an individual resident or domiciled in the United Kingdom, or in another country to which the qualification clause extends, or
a body incorporated under the law of a part of the United Kingdom, or another country to which the qualification clause extends.

Alternatively, a work can qualify for copyright protection if its first publication took place:

in the United Kingdom, or
in another country to which the qualification clause extends.

However, a work made before 1 June 1957, can only qualify for copyright protection by its country of first publication; not by the author's nationality.
A broadcast, if made after 1 June 1957, qualifies for protection if:

it is made in the United Kingdom, or
it is made in another country to which the qualification clause extends.

Lists of the countries which trigger qualification are published in Statutory Instruments periodically. They are, in point of fact, those countries which have acceded to the Berne Copyright Convention.

First publication

The first publication is defined as the first occasion that a work is published anywhere. But if a work is simultaneously published in several countries, all within a 30-day period, each of those countries is treated as the country of first publication.
For example, if a work is first published in the United Kingdom, but is published in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand within the following 30 days, all those countries are treated under UK law as being the country where the work was first published.
This used to be of importance, prior to 1957, for in those days first publication was the only possible way to obtain a copyright. It became much less important because of the Copyright Act 1956, which grants copyright in the United Kingdom to any work if the author is a British citizen or is resident in Britain, or is a citizen of a Berne Convention country.

Works eligible for protection

The works in which copyright can subsist are typically divided into two sub-classes. Works in the first sub-class are known as authorial works:

Original literary works ;
Original dramatic works;
Original musical works; and
Original artistic works.

For copyright to subsist in these works, the work itself must be 'original'. This is traditionally seen as requiring that the author exercised skill, labour, and judgment in its production. Three of these works are also subject to a fixation requirement: a literary, dramatic, or musical work must be recorded. It is immaterial whether this was done without the author's permission.
The second sub-class of works in which copyright subsist are often known as neighbouring or entrepreneurial works:

Films;
Sound recordings;
Broadcasts; and
Typographical arrangements of published editions.
Multiple copyrights

It is possible for more than one copyright to subsist in respect of a single item. For example, if a musician were to release an album the following copyrights might subsist in respect of that item:

Cinema films made before 1 June 1957, the date on which the Copyright Act 1956 came into force, are not protected as film. They are however protected under the Copyright Act 1911 as dramatic works and as a series of photographs.

Broadcast copyright

In the United Kingdom, there are two distinct classes of broadcast: those made before and those made after the commencement of the Copyright Act 1956. Under the Act of 1911, passed before the invention of the radio or television broadcasting, no copyright existed in a broadcast, and this was not modified until the Act of 1956. Until the 1950s not even the broadcaster had the technical means of recording or replaying a broadcast signal, so there had been no need to make provisions for copyright protection.
The 1956 Act is not retrospective in its effect, so a television or radio broadcast made before 1 July 1957 has no broadcast copyright: Schedule 7 para 17, Copyright Act 1956. Wireless broadcasts prior to 1 June 1957 are therefore not protected at all. The Copyright 1911 made no provision for them, as broadcasting had not been invented when the act was passed. Broadcasts by cable prior to 1 January 1985 are not protected at all either. Neither of the acts of 1911 and 1956 made provision for broadcasts by cable, as they had not been defined and protected as either "works" or "broadcasts" of either Act.
In the case of a broadcast made after the commencement of the 1956 Act, the copyright in a broadcast programme expires 50 years from the end of the year in which it is broadcast: section 14, Copyright Act 1956. Repeating such a broadcast does not extend the period of copyright, whether the repeat is during or after the 50-year copyright period: section 14, Copyright Act 1956.
The 1956 Act restricts only two matters: it prohibits recording the broadcast for commercial purposes, and it prohibits causing the live broadcast to be seen in public by a paying audience: section 14, Copyright Act 1956.
These provisions were re-enacted in substantially the same terms in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, in order to preserve the distinction between broadcasts made before and after 1 June 1957.
The 1988 Act applies only to broadcasts made after it came into force on 1 August 1989: section 170 and Schedule 1 paragraph 5, Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. But it effects, in the main, merely a continuation of the existing law on broadcast copyright, on the same terms as established in the 1956 Act, while adding protection for the new technology of cable television.
In the 1988 Act, provision was made for the first time for material distributed by cable television, in the form of a separate copyright for cable programmes. This copyright lasts for the same period as broadcast copyright. However, there is no protection for cable programmes transmitted before 1 January 1985. Subsequent amendments to the 1988 Act have now merged the definition of a cable programme into the definition of a broadcast.