Copyright Act 1956

Last updated

Copyright Act, 1956 [1]
Act of Parliament
Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (Variant 1, 2022).svg
Long title An Act to make new provision in respect of copyright and related matters, in substitution for the provisions of the Copyright Act, 1911, and other enactments relating thereto; to amend the Registered Designs Act, 1949, with respect to designs related to artistic works in which copyright subsists, and to amend the Dramatic and Musical Performers' Protection Act, 1925; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid.
Citation 4 & 5 Eliz. 2. c. 74
Territorial extent 
Dates
Royal assent 5 November 1956
Commencement 5 November 1956
Other legislation
Repealed by Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted
Text of the Copyright Act 1956 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.

The Copyright Act 1956 (4 & 5 Eliz. 2. c. 74) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which received its royal assent on 5 November 1956. The Copyright Act 1956 expanded copyright law in the UK and was passed in order to bring copyright law of the United Kingdom in line with international copyright law and technological developments. [2]

Contents

The entire act was repealed by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyright</span> Legal concept regulating rights of a creative work

A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives the creator of an original work, or another owner of the right, the exclusive, legally secured right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.

Parliamentary copyright is a form of copyright in works made by either of the two Houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom: the House of Lords or the House of Commons. It also applies to Bills proposed in either House and to the devolved legislatures in the United Kingdom: the Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly or Senedd Cymru – the Welsh Parliament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intellectual Property Office (United Kingdom)</span> Patent Office of the United Kingdom

The Intellectual Property Office of the United Kingdom is, since 2 April 2007, the operating name of The Patent Office. It is the official government body responsible for intellectual property rights in the UK and is an executive agency of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian Intellectual Property Office</span> Canadian government agency

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office is responsible for the administration and processing of the greater part of intellectual property (IP) in Canada. CIPO's areas of activity include patents, trademarks, copyright, industrial designs and integrated circuit topographies. Structurally, CIPO functions as a special operating agency (SOA) under Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. CIPO is based in Gatineau, Quebec, part of the National Capital Region. CIPO’s current interim Chief Executive Officer is Konstantinos Georgaras.

Copyright Act is a stock short title used for legislation in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States relating to the copyright. The Bill for an Act with this short title will usually have been known as a Copyright Bill during its passage through Parliament.

Patent Act and Patents Act are stock short titles used in Canada, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States for legislation relating to patents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988</span> United Kingdom law

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, also known as the CDPA, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that received royal assent on 15 November 1988. It reformulates almost completely the statutory basis of copyright law in the United Kingdom, which had, until then, been governed by the Copyright Act 1956 (c. 74). It also creates an unregistered design right, and contains a number of modifications to the law of the United Kingdom on Registered Designs and patents.

"Author's rights" is a term frequently used in connection with laws about intellectual property.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988</span> United States law

The Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 is a copyright act that came into force in the United States on March 1, 1989, making it a party to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

The rule of the shorter term, also called the comparison of terms, is a provision in international copyright treaties. The provision allows that signatory countries can limit the duration of copyright they grant to foreign works under national treatment to no more than the copyright term granted in the country of origin of the work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photography and the law</span> Legal status of photography, including intellectual property and privacy laws

The intellectual property rights on photographs are protected in different jurisdictions by the laws governing copyright and moral rights. In some cases photography may be restricted by civil or criminal law. Publishing certain photographs can be restricted by privacy or other laws. Photography can be generally restricted in the interests of public morality and the protection of children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berne Convention</span> 1886 international assembly and treaty

The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, was an international assembly held in 1886 in the Swiss city of Bern by ten European countries with the goal to agree on a set of legal principles for the protection of original work. They drafted and adopted a multi-party contract containing agreements for a uniform, border-crossing system that became known under the same name. Its rules have been updated many times since then. The treaty provides authors, musicians, poets, painters, and other creators with the means to control how their works are used, by whom, and on what terms. In some jurisdictions these type of rights are being referred to as copyright, on the European continent they are generally referred to as author' rights or makerright.

Under the law of the United Kingdom, a copyright is an intangible property right subsisting in certain qualifying subject matter. Copyright law is governed by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended from time to time. As a result of increasing legal integration and harmonisation throughout the European Union a complete picture of the law can only be acquired through recourse to EU jurisprudence, although this is likely to change by the expiration of the Brexit transition period on 31 December 2020, the UK has left the EU on 31 January 2020. On 12 September 2018, the European Parliament approved new copyright rules to help secure the rights of writers and musicians.

The copyright term is the length of time copyright subsists in a work before it passes into the public domain. In most of the world, this length of time is the life of the author plus either 50 or 70 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyright Act 1911</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Copyright Act 1911, also known as the Imperial Copyright Act of 1911, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (UK) which received royal assent on 16 December 1911. The act established copyright law in the UK and the British Empire. The act amended existing UK copyright law, as recommended by a royal commission in 1878 and repealed all previous copyright legislation that had been in force in the UK. The act also implemented changes arising from the first revision of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1908.

The Corporate Affairs and Intellectual Property Office (CAIPO) is a Barbadian governmental agency in charge of various aspects of industrial property right affairs including: patents, trademarks, and industrial designs. It is a division of the Ministry of Industry & International Business. The CAIPO office is located on Belmont Road, Saint Michael, Barbados. The country ranks as one of the top countries where the greatest number of foreign patents are legally based.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intellectual property in Iran</span>

Iran is a member of the WIPO since 2001 and has acceded to several WIPO intellectual property treaties. Iran joined the Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property in 1959. In December 2003 Iran became a party to the Madrid Agreement and the Madrid Protocol for the International Registration of Marks. In 2005 Iran joined the Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and their International Registration, which ensures the protection of geographical names associated with products. As at February 2008 Iran had yet to accede to The Hague Agreement for the Protection of Industrial Designs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intellectual property protection of typefaces</span> Copyright, trademark and patent considerations of fonts and related

Typefaces, fonts, and their glyphs raise intellectual property considerations in copyright, trademark, design patent, and related laws. The copyright status of a typeface and of any font file that describes it digitally varies between jurisdictions. In the United States, the shapes of typefaces are not eligible for copyright but may be protected by design patent. Typefaces can be protected in other countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, by industrial design protections that are similar to copyright or design patent in that they protect the abstract shapes. Additionally, in the US and some other countries, computer fonts, the digital instantiation of the shapes as vector outlines, may be protected by copyright on the computer code that produces them. The name of a typeface may also be protected as a trademark.

Moral rights in United Kingdom law are parts of copyright law that protect the personal interests of the author of a copyrighted work, as well as the economic interests protected by other elements of copyright. Found in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the moral rights are the right to be identified as the author of a work, known as the right of paternity, the right to object to derogatory treatment of a work, known as the right of integrity, the right not to be identified as the author of someone else's work, and the right to privacy. The right of paternity exists for the entire copyright term, and requires individuals who commercially broadcast, sell, perform or exhibit literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works to identify the author of the work – but this does not apply to things such as typefaces, encyclopaedias or works subject to crown copyright.

References

  1. Short title as conferred by s. 51 of the Act; the modern convention for the citation of short titles omits the comma after the word "Act"
  2. Coyle, Michael (23 April 2002). "The History of Copyright". Lawdit. Archived from the original on 28 December 2010. Retrieved 6 March 2010.