Film theft in the UK - Future of Copyright

36 A study conducted by OTX in conjunction with
the MPA found that European movie
downloaders cited their perception of movies
being too expensive as a major reason for
Internet downloading. See http://www.mpaa.
org/MPAAPress
37 The MPA argues that the term ‘filesharing’ is a
misnomer and should be acknowledged to be
file copying rather than sharing.
38 http://www.aacp.org.uk/index.html. The
Alliance is a coalition of British trade
associations and industry enforcement
organisations, including the music, audiovisual,
retail, brand manufacturing and
business and games software industries. It was
established in 1999. Its main purpose is to
persuade the Government to reform
intellectual property laws and to introduce
legislation to strengthen the hand of
enforcement agencies in the battle against
counterfeiting and piracy.
39 According to Shropshire County Council
sources.
40 See later section on US copyright law.
41 According to interview with Mr Randhawa
Sukhwant, Vice President of Legal Affairs from
Eros Entertainment. Mr Sukhwant cited the
case of a man who was caught 12 times by
customs authorities at the Heathrow airport
transporting suitcases full of counterfeit DVDs,
but went unpunished. Mr Sukhwant blamed
both the lack of resources of enforcement
authorities and the lenient attitude of courts
towards piracy to explain the high rate of
counterfeit goods in the UK.
http://www.erosentertainment.com
42 See report of the Whitford Committee, Cmnd
6732 (1977)
43 See Redrow Homes v Bett Bros (House of
Lords, 22 January 1998)
44 Directive 2000/31/EC of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000
on certain legal aspects of information society
services, in particular electronic commerce, in
the Internal Market ('Directive on electronic
commerce') Official Journal L 178, 17 July
2000 p. 0001 – 0016
45 See http://www.fact-uk.org
46 See FACT news releases: http://www.factuk.org
47 See letters, The Times, 26 & 28 July 2004.
48 Patent Office press statement 10 August 2004.
The paper Counter Offensive – An IP Crime
Strategy is available at: http://www.patent.
gov.uk/about/enforcement/ipbook.pdf
49 www.lacors.gov.uk
50 Proposed Strategy for Local Markets –
Legislative Proposal, Alliance Against
Counterfeiting and Piracy.
51 Within the European Union, Directive
95/46/EC harmonises the conditions of the
protection of the right to privacy enshrined in
the legal systems of the Member States. This
Directive gives substance to and amplifies the
principles contained in the European
Convention for the Protection of Human
Rights of 4 November 1950 and in Council of
Europe Convention No. 108 of 28 January
1981 for the Protection of Individuals with
regard to Automatic Processing of Personal
Data. Directive 97/66/EC particularises the
provisions of this Directive in the
telecommunications sector. Both Directives
apply to processing of personal data on the
Internet. A basic data protection principle (see
Articles 6(1)(c) and 7 of directive 95/46/EC) is
that the personal data collected in any
situation should be limited to that which is
necessary and relevant to the purpose, for
example connecting to the Internet and using
the services provided over it. Directive
97/66/EC specifies this with particular regard
to traffic data by prohibiting storage longer
than necessary for billing purposes. The
consequence is that, after erasure of these
data, the individual is again anonymous. In
addition, Article 5 of this Directive obliges
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