Copyright: Gowers recommendations

The Government has proposed relaxing restrictions on copyright for schools and libraries in a major intellectual property consultation launched this week. The process will consider many of the recommendations made by Andrew Gowers in 2006 for reform of copyright law. The UK Intellectual Property Office is carrying out the consultation.The Government has said it wants to create a new exception to copyright law for private copying, or format shifting, such as the copying of a purchased CD to an MP3 player. The exception would only apply to personal or private use. A private right to copy was one of the key recommendations of the Gowers review. Other recommendations from Gowers' report are included in the consultation paper. New exceptions to copyright would be introduced for caricature, parody or pastiche under the proposals. The proposals expand the scope of a library or archive to make a copy of a work for preservation or replacement from written works to sound and film files as well. Schools and universities can currently show copyrighted works to students in a room, and the consultation proposes extending that right over computer networks to allow for more efficient distance learning.