
Shock, awe: British government agrees that copyright has gone too far - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/the-british-government-has-endorsed.ars
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fossuser
It looks like they're enabling something like fair use and realizing that the
way orphan publications are handled doesn't make any sense. Not very exciting
really considering these are regulations that are widely ignored by people who
actually use any technology anyway.

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tejaswiy
Since there was a talk about abolishing patents etc. from the US system, I had
my hopes up for a few seconds that England might've picked some of those
ideals up. Looks like that isn't the acse. They're actually acting now on a
study commissioned in _2006_!

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iuguy
Sorry to be a little picky but it's not England, it's the United Kingdom. Of
all of the member nations of the United Kingdom, England is the only one
unrepresented in government. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales all have
devolved governments of their own. England has no such government.

The sad fact is that the British parliament could pass a law, which can then
be overturned in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland leaving England screwed.
Furthermore, MPs from those countries all get to vote in the British
parliament, then their devolved equivalents can vote against it locally
(except in England as there's no English parliament). This happened most
recently with tuition fees but can apply to almost anything.

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wisty
Keep in mind, the British parliament can over-rule the Scottish one. The
British law could include a clause "none of the above may be changed by the
Parliaments of Scotland, Northern Island, or Wales". But contentious laws are
already hard enough to pass.

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iuguy
You hit the nail on the head with your last part.

There's tons of little loopholes all over the place. For example, the Isles of
Scilly have a slightly strange legal status, and if they're not explicitly
mentioned in a law, it doesn't apply to them (I was told this by someone at
the council in St. Mary's but didn't ask for the specific statute).

To be honest, if a law is contentious enough for the scots to vote against it,
then the devolved parliaments are just as likely push for their national reps
to vote against it on the principle that it overrules them.

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ldar15
"Dear Big Media, Lately we havent received enough campaign funding. We have
made polite inquiries before, but they have gone unanswered. We're trying
really hard to keep a hold on these pesky liberals, but they are doing a
really good job on gaining seats. Here's our idea for new copyright laws. What
do you think? Ideas / monetary contributions to the usual accounts. Also,
we've just lost the Murdoch account so we need some of our other contributors
to step up. Thanks, The Conservative Party"

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josephcooney
I think you're confusing the UK with the USA...or perhaps I'm just naive.

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cabalamat
I don't know whether you're naive or not. I do know that in 2010Q3, Universal
Music was the Conservative Party's largest corporate donor:
[http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-finance/party-
fi...](http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-finance/party-finance-
analysis/party-funding/party-finance-analysis-Q3-2010#Top)

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josephcooney
Thanks for the link. Although you're right, Universal Music was the largest
corporate contributor in that quarter the amount in question wasn't huge
(80,000 pounds) and much smaller than a lot of private contributions (12th
overall). Also looking at subsequent quarters
([http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-finance/party-
fi...](http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-finance/party-finance-
analysis/party-funding/party-finance-analysis-Q4-2010) and
[http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-finance/party-
fi...](http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-finance/party-finance-
analysis/party-funding/Q1-2011)) there doesn't seem to be a pattern of ongoing
contribution.....which maybe backs up the original poster's claim that the
content industry is late on its payments.

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lm2s
Now imagine if they had the Americafuckyeah patent system...

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omarqureshi
Actually, British patent law used to be super fucking screwy -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Monopolies>

