[Fsfe-ie] Copyright consultation

[Ben North]

> Previous Irish legislation [check ref] explicitly had some
> clause along the lines of 'fair-use rights [or whatever they
> were called at the time] cannot be contracted away'.  This
> shows some history in Ireland of recognising their importance
> and is something we could ask to be re-introduced.
> [... re-order ...]
> Resolve ref about previous Irish Copyright act and fair-use
> rights.  I'll try to do this.

My aging memory hadn't got this quite right, sorry.  The bit I was
thinking of was section 374 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act,
2000:

    (Non-interference of rights protection measures with permitted acts.)

    374. Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed as operating to
    prevent any person from undertaking the acts permitted---

    (a) in relation to works protected by copyright under Chapter 6 of
        Part II,

    (b) in relation to performances, by Chapter 4 of Part III, or

    (c) in relation to databases, by Chapter 8 of Part V,

    or from undertaking any act of circumvention required to effect such
    permitted acts.

    [http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2000/en/act/pub/0028/sec0374.html]

where (a)--(c) refer to various fair dealing provisions.  However, that
section was amended by section 5 of SI no.16/2004:

    5. The Act of 2000 is amended by substituting for section 374 the following:

        Non-interference of Rights Protection Measures with Permited Acts

        (1) Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed as operating to
        prevent any person from undertaking the acts permitted ---

        (a) in relation to works protected by copyright under Chapter 6
            of Part II,

        (b) in relation to performances, by Chapter 4 of Part III, or

        (c) in relation to databases, by Chapter 8 of Part V.

        (2) Where the beneficiary is legally entitled to access the
        protected work or subject-matter concerned, the rightsholder
        shall make available to the beneficiary the means of benefitting
        from the permitted act, save where such work or other
        subject-matter has been made available to the public on agreed
        contractual terms in such a way that members of the public may
        access the work or other subject-matter from a place and at a
        time individually chosen by them.

        (3) In the event of a dispute arising, the beneficiary may apply
        to the High Court for an order requiring a person to do or to
        refrain from doing anything the doing or refraining from doing
        of which is necessary to ensure compliance by that person with
        the provisions of this section.

    [http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2004/en/si/0016.html]

which muddies the water a bit --- what exactly does 'save where such
work or other subject-matter has been made available to the public on
agreed contractual terms in such a way that members of the public may
access the work or other subject-matter from a place and at a time
individually chosen by them' mean?  I guess it might be talking about
movies-on-demand or something, but IA-certainly-NAL.  This came up
previously in Ireland's implementation of EU directive 2001/29/EC.

Anyway, the point (mostly) remains that the Irish legislature has
historically been sympathetic to the idea that "fair dealing" overrules
"no circumventing rights protection measures".

(Incidentally, I found the SI via

    http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/isbc/2000.html#a28_2000

which seems to be a sort of list of currently-active diffs against Irish
acts --- quite cool that this information exists.)