The British government has released a report called ?The Government Response to the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property and Growth? outlining significant changes to UK copyright law. This includes the introduction of new copyright exceptions as well as orphan works reforms.</p> <p>Surprisingly, in the report, the government states that ?copyright currently over-regulates to the detriment of the UK? and that CD and possibly DVD copying for personal use should be made legal; even if the CD has a EULA sticker saying that it should not be.</p> <p>In addition to taking the view that ?the widest possible exceptions to copyright within the existing EU framework are likely to be beneficial to the UK?, the report provides clear pledges of what the government intends not to do, including not bringing forward the somewhat controversial site blocking provisions found in last year?s revision of the Digital Economy Act.</p> <p>Perhaps of most importance within the report is the pledge to expand copyright exceptions. Whereas the USA has a fair use policy in place, the UK has no such thing. While the report does not actually use the term ?fair use?, it does promote the legality of what is, in essence, the same thing.</p> <p>While the report is highly significant in that it represents an unexpected change of tone, the one thing it seems to have missed out on is addressing the ability for copyright holders to compel ISPs to block certain sites seen as infringing upon copyright, such as in the recent case where BT was taken to court and forced to block the file sharing site USwitch.com.<br /> The government report is available in full online at: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipresponse-full.pdf.