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UK Citizens May Soon Need License To Photograph Stuff They Already Own (arstechnica.com)

Posted by timothy on from the right-to-break-the-law dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this story from Ars Technica UK: Changes to UK copyright law will soon mean that you may need to take out a licence to photograph classic designer objects, even if you own them. That's the result of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, which extends the copyright of artistic objects like designer chairs from 25 years after they were first marketed to 70 years after the creator's death. In most cases, that will be well over a hundred years after the object was designed. During that period, taking a photo of the item will often require a licence from the copyright owner regardless of who owns the particular object in question. This sounds like a great kernel for a short story, and a terrible idea for a law.

8 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. The UK is regressing to Victorian times... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...but without any of the freedom that came with lack of surveillance technology. Conservative policy since Thatcher has been solidly about contracting out as much of the apparatus of State, including the laws themselves, for the benefit of business-friends.

    The best thing to do is laugh at the 1/6 or so of the population stupid enough to have voted in this government, and encourage the rest of the population to vote them out again.

    1. Re:The UK is regressing to Victorian times... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      If 70% decide not to vote, that is democracy in action. Same happens in the U.S. There was a recently elected politician that said the people had spoken in the recent election, but the voter turnout was only 18%. Non-presidential years in the States have low turnout unfortunately.

  2. So we never own anything buy? by Revek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That is the dream of any manufacturer that they sell you something you never own. You can use it but heaven forbid you talk about it. I'm sure they will want to charge for chairs by the sitting next. Hey! you can't sit in that chair. I'm only allowed fifty sittings a month in that chair. Sounds crazy, just like this article.

    1. Re:So we never own anything buy? by monkeyxpress · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, that is the goal. The problem is that physically making stuff is quickly becoming a very low barrier for competition. 20-30 years ago, if you wanted to, say, make furniture, you would need an enormous amount of capital expenditure, a big factory, lots of workers. Now you can buy the machinery (or just outsource it to china) for probably 10% of that cost. It means it is very hard for a big incumbent to maintain large profit margins because a small up-start can jump in and start competing.

      Big corporates hate this. The whole idea of being a big corporate is that you can stomp around being wildly inefficient but have so much money you can either crush or buyout anyone who might threaten your position. Reducing competitive barriers to entry scares these people a lot because it may very well expose their incompetence.

      So the natural avenue of attack has been to compensate for the loss of scarcity on the physical side with made-up scarcity through this whole notion of 'intellectual property'. First they will get people to accept that someone who admittedly came up with a nice original design, should have this crazy (70 years after their death) monopoly on that design. Then they will expand it to cover things that you would not consider very original at all. Then they will get really sloppy with even checking if there is any originality. Before you know it you will have to have millions of dollars to go to court and invalidate a government-enforced-monopoly if you want to make anything that looks like it could be a chair, which you won't be able to do if you are a small up-start, and so mega-corp goes back to not working very hard and flying around on junkets in corporate jets.

      This is the way the world works. What will kill it is the march of technology, and globalisation. The Chinese still don't really care about copyright, and when Westerners realise that they are living in relative poverty because of all these government enforced monopolies that keep a bunch of incompetent lawyers rich, they will get really annoyed. Sadly we are probably a decade or so from that.

  3. Re:fascist-socialistic chaos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This has nothing to do with socialism you idiot.

  4. Re:So We Never Own Anything We Buy? by sudon't · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not a joke, manufacturers are really pushing us towards this idea that you don't truly own the stuff you buy. That said, I doubt you will need a license to photograph stuff you own. You may a license to publish such a photograph, which is bad enough.

    --
    -- sudon't

    Air-ride Equipped

  5. Headline Writers Untie! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, you won't need a license to "photograph stuff you already own". You may need a license if you want to publish photographs of someone else's intellectual property.

    It's still stupid, but you don't need to try to make the headline scarier than the truth. It doesn't help and it only upsets the children (see other comments).

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  6. Re:So We Never Own Anything We Buy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > You may a license to publish such a photograph

    Clothes may have a copyright on their design. Putting on facebook may be publishing. Do not put up photos of anyone wearing clothes, only of people without clothes.