U.K. Ratifies New Tougher Copyright Law

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 31, 2003 - 9:00am.

London -- The Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003, a new set of copyright laws that parallel the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act and European Union Copyright Directive, went into effect in the U.K. on Friday. The new legislation was passed by the U.K. Patent Office, which told Reuters that law would not enable the fining or imprisonment of individual users of file-sharing networks -- although civil suits are still a course of action. "This law is aimed at the most dangerous activity: the organized crime gangs with warehouses of pirated materials," patent office spokesman Jeremy Philpott told Reuters. "It is not meant to bring criminal charges to individual downloaders." Along with the U.K., Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece and Italy have also adopted versions of the EU Copyright Directive; 10 member states have yet to pass their version of the law as mandated by the EU.
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2003/20032498.htm
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