SaveOurBooks partners urge Government to stick with current copyright regime

The Publishers Association and its #SaveOurBooks partners (Association of Authors’ Agents, Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society and Society of Authors) have written to the new DCMS and BEIS Secretaries of State urging them to continue the current copyright exhaustion regime, which underpins the UK’s £6.7 billion publishing sector.

Last year, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) consulted on changes to the UK’s copyright exhaustion regime, including considering a move to an ‘international exhaustion regime’. The #SaveOurBooks campaign brought together a broad coalition of readers, authors, publishers, and other creative industries in strong support of retaining the UK’s current regime.

We were delighted when the government concluded that the current well-functioning regime would be retained. The UK book sector breathed a huge collective sigh of relief and was very grateful that their concerns had been taken into consideration.

However, the IPO has since announced its intention to make a final decision on copyright exhaustion by March 2023. A move to an international exhaustion regime would harm the UK economy, disincentivise UK exports, and be detrimental to British readers.