UK government report hints at copyright policy changes
A parliamentary committee in the UK has called on the government to introduce tougher sanctions on copyright laws including increasing the maximum term for jail time for online IP theft.
Members of the Committee for Culture, Media and Sport have said current proposals to exempt certain individuals from prosecution for certain copying activity were “not justified” and have called for stricter measures.
In the report, published on September 26, they say the maximum penalty for serious online theft should be increased from two years to ten and attack the “failure” of search-engine Google for not blocking websites offering illegal downloads.
“We strongly condemn the failure of Google, notable among technology companies, to provide an adequate response to creative industry requests to prevent its search engine directing consumers to copyright-infringing websites,” it says.
The committee’s chair, John Whittingdale MP, also directed criticism toward the search engine.
“The continuing promotion of illegal content through search engines is simply unacceptable and efforts to stop it have so far been derisory,” Whittingdale said.
However, a Google spokesperson said it removed more than 20 million links to pirated content from its search results in the last month alone.
Adding that search was not the problem, Google continued, “according to Ofcom just 8 percent of infringers in the UK use Google to find unlicensed film and 13 percent to find unlicensed music.”
“Google works harder than anyone to help the film and music industry protect their content online.”
The proposals come despite the government broadly endorsing much of the proposals highlighted in the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property, a review of copyright regulations, published in 2011.
Adam Rendle, associate at Taylor Wessing LLP, in London, said the report marked a “significant rebalancing of the legislative debate about reform to copyright exceptions.”
Also recommended in the report is a move to resolve current difficulties with the Digital Economy Act by implementing an Online Copyright Infringement Code, which allows Internet providers to send cautions to suspected copyright abusers.
“The government has been ‘full speed ahead’ with introducing more and wider exceptions following Professor Hargreaves' recommendations, without properly considering their consequences,” Rendle said.
The report says the creative industries are worth £36 billion a year to the UK economy, but warned that would be put at risk if they could not rely on tough IP safeguards.
The proposals come just two weeks after David Cameron, the prime minister, raised the prospect of a government crackdown on copyright infringement by appointing MP Mike Weatherley as a special adviser on IP.
Weatherley, MP for Hove and Portslade, is a former music executive who is known for his keenness to protect the creative industries from copyright infringement.
