AV News Magazine | Seite 48

AV News 180 - May 2010

Orphaned Images and Copyright

S u e V a n d e rs te e n

We had already sent the magazine to the printers with an 'in depth' article by
Sue explaining all about the Digital Economy Act, however, when part of the
Act became law on the 7th April, she kindly send us an updated version. We
decided to redesign these pages so that you had access to the very latest
information. First of all the background to the Act :
Copyright, or 'the right to copy' is one of the oldest
forms of intellectual property protection allowing a
person who creates a work to own it in the same way
as they might own their house or car. Just as a car
owner has the right to prevent someone else from
driving it, a copyright owner has the right to stop
someone else copying his work.
Copyright exists when an original piece of work has
been created. There is no need to register it or to affix
the © mark to it. Here in the UK, the law of copyright is
mostly governed by the 1988 Copyright Designs and
Patents Act (CDPA). This act came into being long
before the creation of the world wide web and before digital media became
commonplace. In the intervening years the government has updated the CDPA
to reflect some of these new developments.
One of the aims وHY