Incredible that it's only within past few years that UK archives were allowed to make copies of material in their own collections just to preserve them. Think of all the works - recordings, films, photos, books, etc - that must have been lost because archivists followed the law!

Problem with UK copyright is that it's so inflexible. Every change seems to happen at least a decade after it became urgent. Not that it hasn't in some cases been moving in right direction (in other cases drastically for worse, at expense of the public).

Yet the much more flexible US system also has major problems. I fear having "fair use" exemptions determined by judges, whilst they allow companies to act first and see if they succeeded later, would make for a lot more ridiculous litigiousness, and more uncertainty.

Ideal would be to have a system with rigid and clear rules, like the UK often provides, but with those rules changing much more quickly to reflect social norms and technological developments. e.g. It's ridiculous the UK still doesn't allow you to copy ur CD music to ur iPod!