The Greys

Thanks in no small part to tireless campaigning by the Open Rights Group, a change to British copyright law to allow an exclusion for works of parody has passed through the House of Lords, its last major hurdle before making its way onto the statute books.

This is a hugely reassuring step for us as creators of a parody webcomic. Until now “it’s a parody” could not be considered as a viable defence against copyright claims. If any of the rights holders of the names, characters or logos we’ve used throughout The Greys chose to pursue us for copyright infringement, we would have faced a much harder time defending our comedy creations. This change to the law doesn’t mean we can’t be sued for copyright infringement, but it will raise the proof of burden and offer us a better means of defence than we had previously.

It’s for victories like this that I became one of the founder supporters of the Open Rights Group back in 2005. In the years that have followed they’ve gone from strength to strength, campaigning for our digital liberties and rights against large corporations and even the Government itself. If you’re concerned about GCHQ’s part in the Snowden revelations, perplexed by the recent “emergency” legislation to force the legality of the “DRIP” bill, or frustrated by the UK Government’s naive approach to internet filtering (and check our their “Department of Dirty” video), you really should consider supporting them too.