Pirate or customer

19.08.11 | Jeremy Morton

Some might argue that the record industry has been heavy-handed in enforcing copyright online and in lobbying to extend the reach of copyright laws, while others feel that those copyright laws are hopelessly out of date and inadequate to deal with today's issues.

In the book world, Google has controversially taken steps to digitise material with a view to making it widely searchable—a noble aim, even if the copyright issues are blurry outside of the US, where Google relies heavily on the "fair use" doctrine. Amazon, meanwhile, now apparently sells more digital editions for its Kindle e-reader than it sells printed books. Copyright has never been such a confusing topic.

With the increasing popularity of e-readers, and the continued availability of file-sharing sites aimed at pirate material, digital book piracy is likely to be a significant problem for publishers, who will be looking to utilise the provisions of the Digital Economy Act 2010 in order to force UK internet service providers to act against repeat offenders. But what do our laws say about small-scale sharing of digital publications between friends and family? Other European countries allow "private copying" in exchange for levies on equipment and recording media that may be used for copying, but in the UK there is no such exception.

The Hargreaves Report—commissioned by the UK government and published in May—highlighted "a growing mismatch between what is allowed under copyright exceptions, and the reasonable expectations and behaviour of most people . . . It is difficult for anyone to understand why it is legal to lend a friend a book, but not a digital music file. The picture is confused by the way some online content is now sold with permissions to format shift (iTunes tracks) or to ‘lend' files (Amazon e-books) at no extra cost. This puts the law into confusion and disrepute. It is not a tenable state of affairs."
The Report, debated in Parliament in recent weeks, concludes that rights holders are well aware of UK consumers' behaviour, and that their prices take this into account. It recommends that the government "introduce an exception to allow individuals to make copies for their own, and immediate family's, use on different media".

The government has indicated it is unlikely to introduce a levy system to compensate rights holders, no doubt aware that such systems in Europe are often arbitrary and unfair, and have been the subject of bitter litigation. But the exact shape of any "free" UK exception for private copying remains unclear. The previous government promised to introduce a "format shifting" exception, but discovered that defining its scope was exceedingly difficult, and gave up. If such an exception is announced, it will need to be tempered with educational messages—or it risks signalling to readers that downloading pirated books is also OK.

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