With this making poverty history lark proving really quite tricky, the G8 posse turned its attention to making piracy history this weekend, and has solved the entire problem of IP violations around the world by issuing a statement. That's right, a statement. It's all very exciting. The G8 members have said that they will collectively "give priority to promoting and upholding laws, regulations and/or procedures to strengthen intellectual property enforcement, raising awareness in civil society and in the business community of the legal ways to protect and enforce intellectual property rights and of the threats of piracy and counterfeiting".
The pledge is accompanied by a number of more specific commitments regarding global anti-piracy activity. Each G8 nation will set up a website clarifying their laws on intellectual property and IP enforcement. In addition the Organisation For Economic Co-operation And Development will compile a report outlining the costs and damage caused by piracy and counterfeiting, while the G8 nations will examine how to strengthen the international legal framework on intellectual property law enforcement.
While the commitments fall short of the music industry's main aim - of having a death sentence issued against anyone and everyone involved in Russia's AllofMP3.com - the record industry welcomed the inclusion of IP theft on the G8 agenda, and said that it hoped the pledges made by the conference would assist the content industries' ongoing efforts against piracy.
BPI boss Peter Jamieson told CMU: "In an increasingly global market place and with the phenomenal rise of the internet, intellectual property law enforcement increasingly needs to take place at an international level. That's why we welcome the priority given to piracy and counterfeiting by the G8 countries. Digital technology and globalisation pose real challenges to IP industries like music and we will continue to work very closely with our international federation, the IFPI, to highlight these issues."