The subject of intellectual property comes up frequently in these forums, and is also frequently also the subject of many misunderstandings.
Anyway a crash course on the subject is copyright is the right afforded to people to regulate the use of their works (or works they own), though you may have to further register your works to gain additional rights. The length of copyright is probably your lifetime and beyond these days, however that was not being discussed in this bit of lawmaking.
There are several important exceptions when it comes to this ability to direct the use of your works. Said exceptions usually get called "fair use" or "fair dealing" and mainly fall into criticism/review, education and various types of research, it goes much further and gets much more blurry than that though. What is and isn't fair use/fair dealing is the subject of much debate, said debate happening in courts, in law making and in general (not all law use involves courts and formal legal hearings).
An oft quoted further exception would be for parodying a work. The right to use copyrighted material as the subject of a parody is the case in the USA and several other countries, however the UK technically did not have such a thing. As part of a wider reworking of intellectual property guidelines, one that has seen new small claims courts for intellectual property matters set up, format shifting turn from "illegal but actively unenforced" to actually legal and a few more things besides, the UK now has a parody exception for copyright law. This particular reform does not seem to be in response to any one UK originating case or set of cases, it is presumably then part of a bid to harmonise laws between different countries and comply with EU rulings to similar effect. You can read the UK Intellectual Property Office's report on parody in various jurisdictions (warning, PDF) if you are so inclined.
Pertaining more to games it may have some knock on effects for those making content, something many people seem to be doing these days. However, and as mentioned above, there have thus far not really been any cases where a parody work from a UK based author has been troubled, troubled where it might not have been in a jurisdiction with fewer restrictions/more freedom for parody.
What may be more applicable to games and said content creation would be the clarifications on quotation of copyrighted works. Previously various levels of permission would technically have had to have been obtained (3:27, though the whole show is good). This will almost certainly not apply to a let's play and that minefield, such things probably needing at least some more clarification, rulings or laws at best, at worst it is plain copyright infringement and could be treated accordingly.
However the "non educational but still somewhat academic" discussion of a game and/or concepts within games field, one that is indeed quite popular, may have an easier time of things.
It should also be noted that the private copying of legally obtained works may not apply, or may have further complications, when the copying is of a computer program. Whether this is DRM that is causing this, it was part of the earlier rulings on CD copying, or not remains to be seen. Should it not have been the case then it would have been somewhat applicable to flash carts and related concepts.
You can read more about the various exceptions to copyright in UK law on the Intellectual Property Office's website. http://www.ipo.gov.uk/c-exception
At time of writing there does not seem to much in the way of anything for the new parody exceptions but other new exceptions, and the new clarifications of existing exceptions, are there.
The main source was already linked but here it is again, theregister.co.uk article
Anyway a crash course on the subject is copyright is the right afforded to people to regulate the use of their works (or works they own), though you may have to further register your works to gain additional rights. The length of copyright is probably your lifetime and beyond these days, however that was not being discussed in this bit of lawmaking.
There are several important exceptions when it comes to this ability to direct the use of your works. Said exceptions usually get called "fair use" or "fair dealing" and mainly fall into criticism/review, education and various types of research, it goes much further and gets much more blurry than that though. What is and isn't fair use/fair dealing is the subject of much debate, said debate happening in courts, in law making and in general (not all law use involves courts and formal legal hearings).
An oft quoted further exception would be for parodying a work. The right to use copyrighted material as the subject of a parody is the case in the USA and several other countries, however the UK technically did not have such a thing. As part of a wider reworking of intellectual property guidelines, one that has seen new small claims courts for intellectual property matters set up, format shifting turn from "illegal but actively unenforced" to actually legal and a few more things besides, the UK now has a parody exception for copyright law. This particular reform does not seem to be in response to any one UK originating case or set of cases, it is presumably then part of a bid to harmonise laws between different countries and comply with EU rulings to similar effect. You can read the UK Intellectual Property Office's report on parody in various jurisdictions (warning, PDF) if you are so inclined.
Pertaining more to games it may have some knock on effects for those making content, something many people seem to be doing these days. However, and as mentioned above, there have thus far not really been any cases where a parody work from a UK based author has been troubled, troubled where it might not have been in a jurisdiction with fewer restrictions/more freedom for parody.
What may be more applicable to games and said content creation would be the clarifications on quotation of copyrighted works. Previously various levels of permission would technically have had to have been obtained (3:27, though the whole show is good). This will almost certainly not apply to a let's play and that minefield, such things probably needing at least some more clarification, rulings or laws at best, at worst it is plain copyright infringement and could be treated accordingly.
However the "non educational but still somewhat academic" discussion of a game and/or concepts within games field, one that is indeed quite popular, may have an easier time of things.
It should also be noted that the private copying of legally obtained works may not apply, or may have further complications, when the copying is of a computer program. Whether this is DRM that is causing this, it was part of the earlier rulings on CD copying, or not remains to be seen. Should it not have been the case then it would have been somewhat applicable to flash carts and related concepts.
You can read more about the various exceptions to copyright in UK law on the Intellectual Property Office's website. http://www.ipo.gov.uk/c-exception
At time of writing there does not seem to much in the way of anything for the new parody exceptions but other new exceptions, and the new clarifications of existing exceptions, are there.
The main source was already linked but here it is again, theregister.co.uk article
