Book Review: The E-copyright Handbook

lisrw — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 23:30:54 +0000

Charles Oppenheim takes a look at the latest of Paul Pedley’s copyright guidance books, and, in some respects, finds it wanting.

Paul Pedley is a name that needs no introduction to aficionados of copyright textbooks, being the author of several such books published by Facet Publishing in the past (and reviewed by Ariadne [1][2][3][4][5]). His latest effort, The E-copyright Handbook, attempts to cover the fast-moving and complex world of electronic copyright, using an interesting approach. Rather than the traditional way of such books, describing the media and describing the rights granted to copyright owners, the way the law applies to each media type, exceptions to copyright and so on, his approach is a mixture but with some emphasis on activities, as a glance at the chapter titles shows: Introduction, Content Types, Activities, Copyright Exceptions, Licences, the Digital Economy Act, Enforcement and The Hargreaves Review.

It is a complex approach, which requires careful cross-referencing and also checking that material is neither duplicated, nor that is anything is overlooked. It is not clear to me whether the book is meant for reading through, or whether it should be just dipped into when a particular issue causes someone to check the law; but I found the approach confusing.

The book also suffers from being in a fast-moving area, where the law, and technology, change fast and although it is clear that Facet got the book published in record time, as there are numerous references to 2012 developments in the text, the work is already out of date in several places, and will no doubt get more out of date as the months go on. Another problem is that the book cannot make up its mind whether it is written for UK readers, or readers in the EU, or in the USA. All too often, different countries’ court cases are mentioned together; one is (say) a UK case and another is a US case. Without the understanding that US law and UK law in this field are very different, people will come to incorrect conclusions about the significance of the cases to them in their day to day work. Moreover, all too often the cases are described without any court decisions relating to them being provided; so one is left with the worry ‘why did the author mention this case at all?’

Copyright Issues in Projects Funded by the Electronic Libraries Programme

editor — Sun, 19 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000

After several months experience of dealing with copyright and the eLib programme, Charles Oppenheim returns to the major issues that have a risen.

In this paper I will discuss some of the major copyright issues that have arisen as a result of experiences of the eLib.

Copyright Battles: The Shetland News

editor — Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:00:00 +0000

Charles Oppenheim takes a look at the Shetland Times versus Shetland News copyright case, and its implications for users of the World Wide Web.

On 24 October 1996, Lord Hamilton gave in a Scottish court a preliminary interdict (equivalent to injunction in English law) to prevent the Shetland News, an Internet based newspaper, from offering links from its WWW pages to those of its rival Internet newspaper, the Shetland Times. Right now, the Shetland News is appealing for funds to help fight the case in 1997.

The wording of the interdict includes the following key text (I trust I am not infringing copyright by reproducing it):

Overview of content related to 'bbc'

Book Review: The E-copyright Handbook

Copyright Issues in Projects Funded by the Electronic Libraries Programme

Copyright Battles: The Shetland News