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The Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Heather Humphreys and Minister of State for Training, Skills, Innovation, Research and Development John Halligan today , welcomed the publication of the Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Law Provisions Bill 2018.

Copyright protects creative outputs such as books, films, music, software and television broadcasts against acts such as copying or unauthorised reproduction. This Bill also makes some additional amendments to other intellectual property law, including industrial designs, patents and trademarks. The Bill is intended to make better provision for copyright and other intellectual property (IP) protection in the digital era and to enable rightholders to better enforce their IP rights in the courts. It also addresses a host of other important societal needs including:

expanding the education exception to allow the use of digital works in the classroom or through access to secure school networks, such as students using school iPad at home to access material held in school databases or for watching lectures over the internet;
expanding the research exception and making provision for data analytics through a new exception for text and data mining;
facilitating persons with a disability getting access to works by expanding the disability exception to use new technologies to adapt works to the needs of persons with a disability, allowing persons with a disability or authorised entities to make necessary adaptations to books, audio-visual works or other copyright work themselves using modern technologies.

Minister Humphreys said

“that the Bill contains many important provisions that will be of great benefit to both rightholders and wider society. In particular, I wish to highlight that this Bill will provide for the greater use of copyrighted works by persons with a disability. Also, given my previous role as Minister with responsibility for the creative sector, I am delighted to see the potential for musicians, authors, photographers, other creators and owners of trademarks to better defend their work from infringement where those cases are too small to pursue through the High Court.”

Minister Halligan stated that

“as Minister with responsibility for Ireland's intellectual property regulatory regime I welcome the provisions contained in this Bill and anticipate that they will be of particular interest to those engaged in scientific and other research as well as those involved in education and training. The Minister further added that “the provisions contained in the Bill will enhance Ireland’s reputation for the protection of intellectual property which will further strengthen our efforts to develop an innovation economy.”

Minister Humphreys expects that the Bill will be progressed through the Houses of the Oireachtas in the coming months.