In a move this weekend to protect individual mp3 users from criminalisation the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has called on Chancellor Gordon Brown to change UK copyright law, writes Daniel Griffin. As it currently stands the 300 year old laws mean that anyone who copies content from their legally bought CD’s and DVD’s to their personal computers or other multi-media devices face possible prosecution.

The IPPR recommends in its latest paper, Public Innovation: Intellectual property in a digital age that private individuals beallowed to make copies of their own content, as currently millions of UK residents are breaking the law. A recent survey of 2135 British adults conducted by the National Consumer Council (NCC) discovered that over half of British consumers were infringing copyright law by following this practice, with an additional 59% who weren’t aware they were breaking the law.

Whilst the report cites that the music industry as a whole pursues widespread illegal distribution rather than prosecuting individuals for personal copying, Dr Ian Kearns, Deputy Director of ippr states “It is not the music industries job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of Government.”

The forthcoming Gowers Review of Intellectual Propert, which was set up in the 2005 pre-budget report by Chancellor Gordon Brown and headed by former FT editor Andrew Gowers will analyse the UK’s current Intellectual Property structure. Public Innovation: Intellectual property in a digital age states that the government will need to consider current Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology and be sure it does not affect the preservation of electronic content in libraries, suggesting the British library be given access to DRM-free copy of any new digital content.

http://www.ippr.org.uk