Copyright exceptions

The request was successful.

Dear Intellectual Property Office,

I am writing in connection with proposed new exceptions to copyright law.

I would be grateful if you could please supply me with the
following information:

What meetings, telephone or email exchanges were held with
representatives of the copyright industries - including, but not limited to, publishers, music publishers, recording industry, film industry, TV industry, gaming producers etc. - at any time during the last tree months that discussed any aspect of the proposed copyright exceptions.

I would like to obtain copies of any documents arising out of these meetings or discussions – letters, emails, briefs, memoranda, background documents etc to or from either side etc.

Thank you for your help.

Yours Faithfully,

Glyn Moody

foi, Intellectual Property Office

Dear Mr Moody,

Thank you for your email asking for information regarding communications on the subject of the proposed copyright exceptions. Your request is being dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and will be answered as soon as possible within twenty working days.

If you have any queries about this request do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Alison Smith
Information Rights Manager
Intellectual Property Office
Tel: 01633 814587
Email: [Intellectual Property Office request email]

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Dear foi,

I was wondering whether there had been any developments on my request, please?

Yours sincerely,

Glyn Moody

foi, Intellectual Property Office

Dear Mr Moody,

Thank you for your email of 3 April 2014 in which you requested information on the subject of the proposed copyright exceptions.

We do hold information falling within the terms of your request, however we need more time to consider your request.

I wish to advise you that the following exemption applies to the information that you have requested:

s.22(1) - information intended for future publication.

By virtue of section 10(3), where public authorities have to consider the balance of the public interest in relation to a request, they do not have to comply with the request until such time as is reasonable in the circumstances.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has not yet reached a decision on the balance of the public interest. Due to the need to consider, in all the circumstances of the case, where the balance of the public interest lies in relation to the information that you have requested, the IPO has not been able to respond to your request in full within 20 working days.

I hope to let you have a response by 21 May 2014.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original letter and should be addressed to: [Intellectual Property Office request email] .

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely,

Alison Smith
Information Rights Manager
Intellectual Property Office
Tel: 01633 814587
Email: [Intellectual Property Office request email]

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Alison Smith, Intellectual Property Office

Dear Mr Moody,

Further to my email of 7 May, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has published some of the information that falls within the scope of your request, i.e. evidence submitted. You can access it via http://www.parliament.uk/business/commit... .

The remaining information held by the IPO is still under consideration.

Yours sincerely,

Alison Smith
Records officer
Intellectual Property Office
Tel: 01633 814587.
Email: [Intellectual Property Office request email]

Dear Alison Smith,

Thank you for the update. I hope it may be possible to provide the remaining information soon.

Yours sincerely,

Glyn Moody

foi, Intellectual Property Office

6 Attachments

Dear Mr Moody

Thank you for your email of 3rd April 2014 requesting information about meetings, telephone or email exchanges, held during the last three months with representatives of the copyright industries, that discussed any aspects of the proposed copyright exceptions.

Following a preliminary assessment of your request, you will recall that we contacted you to help clarify your request, and on the 4th April 2014 we discussed some narrowing of the focus of your inquiry.

I can confirm that the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) does hold information relevant to your request.

The IPO is not able to provide information about telephone exchanges with copyright industries as it does not routinely maintain a record of its telephone calls, other than general enquiries via our information centre.

Furthermore, we regret that the Office is unable to provide information relating to email exchanges because we estimate that the effort of searching for them on the scale that you have requested would exceed the appropriate limit, which for central government is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information. As you are probably aware, section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information in where the likely cost exceeds this limit so we shall not be undertaking such a search.

A copy of the information, which can be disclosed, is attached. One document consists of a list of the meetings that have taken place between copyright industry representatives and IPO officials during the last three months.

The other attachments consist of correspondence received from the Publishers Association and the Alliance for Intellectual Property, and comment notes received from Twenty-First Century Fox.

The remainder of the information, which consists of correspondence and supporting documents provided by UK Music, is exempt under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), because the information is accessible to you, as it is already in the public domain, via the following links:

http://www.ukmusic.org/assets/general/JC...
http://www.ukmusic.org/assets/general/SL...

One of the letters from UK Music, published at the above link and dated 30 April 2014, refers to a page of Music Week, which is also attached for reference.

You are reminded that the supply of information in response to a freedom of information request does not confer an automatic right to re-use the information. Under UK copyright law you can use any information supplied for the purposes of private study and non-commercial research without requiring permission. Similarly, information supplied can also be re-used for the purposes of news reporting. An exception to this is photographs.

For other forms of re-use, for example publishing the information, you would need the permission of the organisation or person who owns the copyright. In the case of information produced by government departments and agencies you can re-use the information under the Open Government Licence. For information about this please see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/o...

If, however, the copyright is identified as belonging to somebody else, you will need to apply for permission. For information about how to obtain permission from a third party, please go to Intellectual Property Office’s website at www.ipo.gov.uk .

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original letter and the simplest way of requesting a review is by submitting a customer feedback form via our website at:
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/about/feedback/fee... or emailing [Intellectual Property Office request email] .

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Yours sincerely,

Alison Smith
Information Rights Manager
Intellectual Property Office
Tel: 01633 814587
Email: [Intellectual Property Office request email]

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Dear foi,

Thank you for your email and the information supplied.

Since the problem seems to be searching through emails, I would like to submit the following slimmed-down FOI request:

What email exchanges were held with representatives of the Publishers Association at any time during the last tree months that discussed the proposed copyright exceptions?

As well as copies of these emails, I would like to obtain copies of any documents that were attached to them.

Thank you for your help.

Yours sincerely,

Glyn Moody

foi, Intellectual Property Office

Dear Mr Moody,

Thank you for your request for email exchanges on the proposed copyright exceptions over the last three months, limited to communications with the Publishers Association.

Your request is being dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and will be answered as soon as possible within twenty working days.

If you have any queries about this request do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Alison Smith
Information Rights Manager
Intellectual Property Office
Tel: 01633 814587
Email: [Intellectual Property Office request email]

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Dear foi,

I would be grateful if you could please reply to my FOI request, which is now overdue.

Thank you for your help.

Yours sincerely,

Glyn Moody

foi, Intellectual Property Office

Dear Mr Moody,

As you will recall, part of your original information request was refused under s.12 of the FOI Act on cost grounds. In your subsequent email of 27 May you narrowed your request for the refused information by asking for email exchanges, limited to communications with the Publishers Association, which we have treated as a new request. This is in accordance with guidance issued by the Information Commissioner, because in refusing a wider range of communications previously we did not have an opportunity fully to review the material.

Having said that, we are hoping to release any relevant information that is not subject to one or more exemptions ahead of the last date for reply, which is 24 June. I say we are hoping to do so, but please be aware that if we consider that a qualified exemption applies to some of the information, there is a possibility that we may require more time to apply a public interest test with respect to that information. We are however working to avoid that eventuality.

Yours sincerely,

Alison Smith
Information Rights Manager
Intellectual Property Office
Tel: 01633 814587
Email: [Intellectual Property Office request email]

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Dear foi,

Thank you for your prompt reply. I look forward to hearing from you again later this month.

Yours sincerely,

Glyn Moody

Julie Owen, Intellectual Property Office

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Moody,

Thank you for your email of 27 May 2014 in which you requested the following information:

"What email exchanges were held with representatives of the Publishers Association at any time during the last three months that discussed the proposed copyright exceptions?

As well as copies of these emails, I would like to obtain copies of any documents that were attached to them."

A redacted copy of all the relevant information held by the IPO is attached. Please note that the information was located within several email chains which have been edited for clarity only, by the removal of duplicate messages where possible. Other than that, redaction has been limited to personal information.

That information is exempt under section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), as the information constitutes the names of individuals, including junior officials, whose identities are not in the public domain, as well as some personal mobile and direct land line phone numbers of individuals.

Section 40(2) provides that personal data is exempt information if one of the conditions set out in section 40(3) is satisfied. Under the FOI Act disclosure of this information would breach the fair processing principle contained in the Data Protection Act (DPA), where it would be unfair to that person.

This is an absolute exemption and there is therefore no requirement to consider the public interest.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original letter and addressed to [Intellectual Property Office request email] .

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Yours sincerely,

Alison Smith
Information Rights Manager
Intellectual Property Office
Tel: 01633 814587
Email: [Intellectual Property Office request email]

Dear Alison Smith,

Thank you very much for sending through the information requested in my second FOI, which is very useful. I quite understand about the redaction of personal information - certainly not a problem.

Yours sincerely,

Glyn Moody