UK copyright change, the choice is yours
January 30, 2018
Copyright Agency’s equivalent collecting society in the United Kingdom, the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) has applied to the UK Government to operate a new scheme known as Extended Collective Licensing (ECL).
Such schemes enable licensing bodies, that represent a significant number of rightsholders belonging to the same class, to extend their licences to cover unrepresented rightsholders in the same class. So, it’s like an “all in” unless you opt out – even if you are not a member of the collecting society.
Our current bilateral agreement with the CLA provides our members with payments when works are copied in their territory, and vice versa.
While the introduction of this new Extended Collective Licensing scheme is unlikely to affect any international revenue our members receive in future, you do have the option to opt out of the scheme if you wish to.
If you do opt out of the scheme, please note that the UK Government’s copyright provision allows educational institutions to copy up to 5% of a copyright-protected work each year if there is not a licence available.
The UK ECL licences will override this exception for all works, but the unremunerated exception will continue to apply to any works that have been opted out of the ECL scheme.
If you wish to opt out of CLA’s ECL scheme you can do so by contacting Sarah Tran at stran@copyright.com.au or by sending an email directly to CLA at optout@cla.co.uk
Further information can be found at https://www.cla.co.uk/news-cla-application-extended-collective-licensing