Rather than enter into legal arguments, is it not a bit more productive to try and get the law changed for everyone's benefit!!
Pages 8-9 of the government's response to the Hargreave's report: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipresponse-full.pdf "The Government will therefore bring forward proposals in autumn 2011 for a substantial opening up of the UK’s copyright exceptions regime on this basis. This will include proposals for a limited private copying exception; to widen the exception for noncommercial research, which should also cover both text- and data-mining to the extent permissible under EU law; to widen the exception for library archiving; and to introduce an exception for parody" Seems like a perfect window (with it being Autumn 2011) to actually get in touch with your MP and make the case for public interest research in addition to scientific and medical research. Cheers, Donny. On 24 October 2011 12:48, Francis Davey <[email protected]> wrote: > 2011/10/24 Chris Taggart <[email protected]>: >> >> No, but that's not the point I was making. I (possibly incorrectly) >> understood that Press Releases were deemed to have been put in the public >> domain by the entity issuing them. I just wondered if the same could be >> argued for annual reports, particularly if they are also given to regulatory >> news agencies, for wider distribution. > > I doubt it. > > Just a pedantic observation: you can't (in UK law) put something "in > the public domain" (in the copyright sense). You can give a broad > licence so that anyone can use it. You *might* be able to disclaim it > (so that it would fall into the hands of the Crown by bona vacantia), > but copyright just keeps on going until its time expires. > > Hence, what you are actually thinking about is implied licences. > > Annual reports have to be given to CH, which suggests there's no > implied licence to do anything in particular there. If published, it > would depend on the terms and form of publication, but it seems > unlikely that you could do much with them beyond what the company > wanted you to do. > > -- > Francis Davey > > _______________________________________________ > developers-public mailing list > [email protected] > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public > > Unsubscribe: > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/options/developers-public/donovanhide%40gmail.com > _______________________________________________ developers-public mailing list [email protected] https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public Unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/options/developers-public/archive%40mail-archive.com
