What is non-commercial use?
The restriction of fair dealing to ‘non-commercial use’ was only introduced into the law in October 2003 and has caused confusion since. There is no definition in the legislation of non-commercial, neither have there been any court cases directly in point although in 2007 an English court found that the activities of a private research company amounted to commercial use where it had gained unlicensed access to the contents of a mapping database service made available only to universities and the public research communities in the UK. The company argued that it had been using the information for research – the development of a mapping tool and as the tool was not completed it was at a non-commercial stage. The court rejected the argument taking account of the eventual commercial usage of the mapping tool. The Court was also unimpressed by the covert nature and extent of the copying. The British Academy and Publishers Association have recently published guidelines on Copyright and Academ
