Under UK law, copyright protection is available for original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works, and sound recordings, films, broadcasts, cable programmes and typographical arrangements of public editions.  A literary, dramatic or musical work must be recorded in a form of notation or code to attract copyright protection. Apart from a minimum degree of skill and effort, a work requires only to have been created without being copied from some other work in order to be regarded as original.  Copyright only protects the expression of the work and not the underlying ideas expressed in the work, and therefore the scope of protection afforded by copyright is limited.

It is not necessary (or possible) to register copyright in the UK.  A copyright work, whether published or not enjoys, on the whole, protection for a period of 70 years from the end of the year in which the author dies.  It is infringed by copying (which may be unconscious as well as conscious) or some other act (such as publication or broadcasting) in relation to the work itself.

The definition of a literary work also includes computer programs and preparatory design material for computer programs, as to which there are special rules as a result of the EC Directive on the legal protection of computer programs (91/250/EEC).  Copying is defined as meaning ‘reproduction in any material form', and this includes storage in any medium by electronic means, and making copies which are transient or incidental to some other use of the work.

Significant changes to the way in which rights in databases are protected throughout the EU were introduced by Directive 96/9/EC of 11th March 1996.  Under the new rules, a database will only qualify for copyright protection if by reason of the selection or arrangement of the contents of the database the database constitutes the author's own intellectual creation.  This is a higher test than previously applied under English law.

The Directive also introduced a new intellectual property right called "database right".  This will subsist in a database "if there has been substantial investment in obtaining, verifying or presenting the contents of the database".  This right will exist irrespective of whether the database in question and/or its contents separately qualify for copyright protection.

Database right will be infringed by anyone who, without consent, extracts or re-utilises all or a substantial part of the contents of the database (or repeatedly and systematically extracts or re-utilises insubstantial parts of the contents).  Database right lasts for fifteen years from the end of the calendar year in which the making of the database was completed or, where it is made available to the public, fifteen years from the end of the calendar year in which it was made available. 

The Internet has raised serious issues about the ability of copyright owners to protect and exploit their works.  Significant changes to copyright law in the EU will take place when Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonisation of copyright and related rights in the information society comes into force later this year, which will update copyright law for the digital era.

© Davenport Lyons 2003.  All rights reserved

This document reflects the law and practice as at May 2003.  It is general in nature, and does not  purport in any way to be comprehensive  or a substitute for specialist legal advice in individual circumstances.