Copyright and Pusblishing in the UK - 1198 Words

There are no specific laws in the UK governing publishing, there is no censorship, and so we have what’s called a free press, there is no government censorship. However there are some laws that are particularly relevant, of course they comprise principles of ethics and of good practice as applicable to the specific challenges faced by journalists and publishers. For example, phone hacking scandals such as the one recently publicised, which involved The News of the World phone hacking scandal. Although phone hacking isnt illegal, it does become so if it interferes with another law for example, interfering with the course of justice. A copyright are exclusive rights given to the creator of an original product so that they have rights to copy, distribute and adapt their own work. However these rights only last for a certain number of years. Currently the rights only last for 70 years but other creators are trying to extend this. A prime example is Shakespeare; his work is now currently in the public domain after his copyright law expired, other companies, for example, clothes shops, now use his quotes on t-shirts.However if the product hasn’t expired and is used by other companies without authorization this is called copyright infringement. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act came into force after July 31st. It protects any work such as musical or artistic, dramatic, sound recording, film, broadcast or typographical arrangement. Defamation is the communication of a