Rhetoric & the 'Three-Step Test'-Copyright Reform in the United Kingdom

摘要

Organisations representing right-holders now frequently suggest that expansions to the scope of exceptions in copyright law would, or might, be incompatible with the "three-step test" and would therefore contravene international and European law. A number of such claims were advanced by respondents to the United Kingdom's recent (and ongoing) Taking Forward the Gowers Review consultation on copyright exceptions. In this Opinion, it is argued that, given the fundamentally uncertain requirements of the "three-step test" and taking intornaccount the role it was originally designed to fulfil, these claims are usually little more than misleading wishful-thinking.