machine-envy

The House of Commons have started debating Gordon Brown’s speech and the Gowers Review has been published online. Here it is.

I’m reading over it now. Eye-catching recommendations include:

• tougher penalties for online copyright infringement - with a maximum 10 years imprisonment
• consulting on the use of civil damages as a deterrent for IP infringement
• business representatives sit on a new independent Strategic Advisory Board on IP Policy, advising the Government (what, no public interest groups?)
• a strictly limited ‘private copying’ exception to enable consumers to format-shift content they purchase for personal use. For example to legally transfer music from CD to their MP3 player
• clarifying (library) exceptions to copyright to make them fit for the digital age
• recommending that the European Commission does not change the status quo and retains the 50 year term of copyright protection for sound recordings and related performers’ rights

UPDATE: Those with a particular interest in the term extension debate might like to check out this report, commissioned by the Review, into the economic arguments for and against.

Gordon Brown has so far made a few mentions of intellectual property in his pre budget speech, stating that a “robust intellectual property regime” was needed to encourage innovation in the UK, vital to the UK’s competitiveness in the global marketplace. He has stated that the Secretary for Industry (Alistair Darling) will announce tighter penalties for piracy and new rights for private copying, as well as tighter trademark safeguards for SMEs.

Will there be more? Listen at the BBC Parliament channel.

I’m logged on to the BBC Parliament channel this morning, awaiting Gordon Brown’s pre budget report, which should start in 15 minutes. The Gowers Review of Intellectual Property will be released after this speech.

As a precursor to the report, my column in openDemocracy asks whether the government will go with Gowers’ leaked recommendation, that copyright on sound recordings remain at 50 years.

“The review has attracted submissions from the British Libraryto the National Union of Journalists, from digital-rights campaigners to the Open Rights Group to recording industry representatives the British Phonographic Institute (BPI). All in all, around 500 individuals and organisations submitted evidence to the review, a figure widely believed to have set a record for submissions to any independent review commissioned by the UK government.

“Why has there been so much interest? Perhaps because, until this point, there has been no effective, accessible forum for debating IP in the UK - or indeed anywhere. “The sense that democratic dialogue is failing on this topic is a serious one”, write Kay Withers and William Davies of the Institute for Public Policy Research in their recent paper Public Innovation, concluding a nine-month research project into the UK’s current intellectual-property framework. Gowers, it seems, opened the doors to such a dialogue. How his review is interpreted by government later this week will be crucial…”

Read the rest here.

Once the review has been published, I’ll be interviewing Andrew Gowers face to face. I’ve only got fifteen minutes, but if anyone has anything they’re burning to ask, leave them in the comments and I’ll try and include them.