A year ago today, the Gowers Review was released to the public. The Government accepted all of the 54 recommendations it made, and experts welcomed the balanced approach it took to intellectual property law in the digital age, since it matched greater flexibility with tougher measures on enforcement (although at the time, we flagged its failure to distinguish between large-scale commercial counterfeiting, and small-scale non-commercial acts carried out by individuals, now a live issue with current IPRED 2 negotiations). But one year on, things don't look quite so rosy.
I interviewed Andrew Gowers a few hours after the release of the Review. He said that enforcement and flexibility were "two sides of the same coin". The Review states:
"Copyright in the UK presently suffers from a marked lack of public legitimacy. It is perceived to be overly restrictive, with little guilt or sanction associated with infringement."
Gowers's suite of recommendations attempted to redress this situation by re-instating the balance in copyright law. So how has Government performed in implementing Gowers's recommendations?
In April this year, changes to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act came into force that allowed Trading Standards to enter premises and seize goods and documents they believe to be involved in copyright infringement. These changes were backed by £5m in new funding for Trading Standards. There is little question that this contributed to the arrests of webmasters at TV-links and Oink later in the year.
In May, the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) quietly delayed its consultations on changes to the law that would allow a private copying exception, an exception for researchers, for libraries and educators, and for those creating works of parody or pastiche out of copyrighted works.
In November, at an event hosted by the Social Market Foundation, the recording industry revealed plans to cooperate with ISPs and launch a "3 steps and you're terminated" regime that would cut off the internet connections associated with people believed to be sharing copyrighted works unlawfully. This industry cooperation is recommendation 39 of the Gowers Review, and it looks to be on schedule.
A call to the UK IPO yesterday confirmed that consultations on the exceptions to copyright law have been further delayed, and will now not be seen until the New Year. These are consultations, the first baby step in implementation, and it's unlikely that any actual legal amendments will be seen until 2009 at the earliest.
What's more, when the Open Rights Group met with culture minister Margaret Hodge and senior officers from DCMS and the UK IPO in October, it was revealed that actions to implement recommendation 11, that copyright should be amended at the European level to create an exception for transformative works, had not even been timetabled.
If enforcement and flexibility are two sides of the same coin, then one year on it looks like the toss has definitely gone to enforcement. This means that Government is in effect making the situation worse: concentrating on strengthening enforcement measures while failing to address the inherent inflexibility of copyright law that Gowers identified as a key factor in the general public's disrespect for the law.
It's up to all of us who submitted evidence to Gowers in 2006 to keep the pressure up on Government to make good on their promise to reform copyright for the digital age.
The Open Rights Group : Blog Archive » UK Government launches new consultation on copyright:
Dec 18, 2008 at 05:13 PM
[...] benefit artists little, many in the Open Rights Group community were outraged. On top of the now 2 year delay to see vital exceptions and limitations to copyright law updated for the digital age, and with [...]
Michael:
Dec 06, 2007 at 11:15 AM
Cracking post that pulls together the shameful story on how the govt has cherry-picked Gowers' recommendations.
The Open Rights Group : Blog Archive » Gowers update:
Dec 21, 2007 at 10:28 AM
[...] Gowers made his recommendations for the reform of IP law, the UK Intellectual Property Office has finally announced a date for the first stage of a two-part consultation into modifications to the copyright [...]
Dynamo_ace:
Dec 06, 2007 at 11:45 AM
They should realise they should not take sides in this mudwar, or have very limited control over this. The people now fear Trading standards could go bad, and that would be very bad news for small businesses, sole traders and freelancers.
The Gowers reports stinks anyway with only a silver lining preventing people to entirely call foul play, now it seems is just plain stinks with no silver lining.
In anycase, the report also fails to show the true causes and fails to understand what people want. The bottom line being lower prices, access to nearly all products worldwide and a reduction in bad distribution practices, lower and flexible copyright (with incentives andor free propatry licences), and no draconian products like DRM.
Add this to the new draconian Internet "Back breaker" plans suggested by someone who should not have been interviewed, and then may God help us all though these difficult times. For i fear a cold war style arms race may ensue at the very least if this continues.
The Open Rights Group : Blog Archive » Data Sharing Review:
Jul 11, 2008 at 06:49 PM
[...] P.S. It would be nice if the Government, as part of its response to this review, established a clear timetable for implementation so we do not end up one year from now asking “where are our reforms?“ [...]