Superfast Broadband - Evidence - Parliament

British Recorded Music (BPI) – written evidence
• search engines ranking legal services above illegal services – at the moment
Google, the most used search engine, tends to serve almost wholly infringing sites
on its first page of results;
• ending the financial support for illegal sites by not placing advertising on them,
or profiting from infringement by selling key words associated with piracy or by
selling mobile applications which facilitate infringement; and
• not to allow payment to infringing sites from credit cards and payment
services.
45. Whilst it has been shown now in court that sites that are facilitating illegal distribution
of content may be blocked through the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
(through the Newzbin II case) the process is still too slow and expensive for rights
holders. BPI believes a court process is important but it should be done in the
applications court or another procedure which can be cheaper and quicker (i.e. less
than the 6 months to a year) than the current process.
46. BPI recommends that Ofcom be given both a general duty to tackle
infringing content online to ensure customers have confidence in safety and
legality online, particularly when using trusted brands. BPI also
recommends that the Ofcom media literacy duty includes a duty to
educate about copyright and the importance of using legal sites.
47. The UK content industries are world class, but the influence of non UK technology
companies in Government is clouding the debate over the importance of property
rights. The overall agency with responsibility for IP in the UK Government, the
Intellectual Property Office, has a weak understanding of the digital business models of
the creative industries and their reliance on the copyright framework; and is pursuing
policies that consist primarily of weakening creators’ rights to benefit third parties (in
particular technology companies) at the expense of UK creative industries. The future
health of our world class content industries requires co-ordinated effective and
supportive measures across Government.
48. BPI recommends that the Intellectual Property Office is re-established as a
body to champion the UK copyright industries, with clear statutory duties
to protect and promote the interests of UK intellectual property in the UK
and overseas and to co-ordinate effective enforcement of UK rights
domestically and internationally. The Intellectual Property Office should
also have a duty to educate consumers on the value of ideas and intellectual
property and the importance of respecting intellectual property rights.
2 March 2012
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