The Government is planning to introduce a new law in just two weeks’ time that allows companies to use your photos without your permission and without paying you for their use. The law was proposed by the Intellectual Property Office, bowing to commercial pressure from publishers.
Instead of seeking the owner of the photograph’s permission and paying for use, publishers will be able to pay a nominal fee to a government body instead of the owner. To take advantage of this, all the publisher needs to do is say they couldn’t find the owner of the photo. In theory, they are supposed to do a ‘diligent search’ for the copyright owner – in practise, given the billions of photos online this protection means nothing.
What is more, the Government plan to pass the law without even debating it properly in Parliament! Only the Liberal Democrats have so far mounted any kind of convincing opposition to these plans.
Section 43 needs to be struck out. Click below for the “Stop43″ website:
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