The government's Department Of Innovation, Universities And Skills, which I've never heard of before, but apparently is not at all made up, has just published a report on intellectual property crime, and makes a number of proposals for how the theft of IP could be better combated - including increasing the sharing of intelligence between law-enforcement types and IP industry bodies, possibly via a secure website, which will probably be hacked within a week of launch (talk about a prime target for the hackers) but which seems like a fair enough proposal.
The report estimates that the black market for intellectual property based products (pirated CDs, DVDs and software, and counterfeit branded merchandise) is now worth £1.3 billion each year in the UK, but on a more optimistic note observes that the number of arrests of bootleggers has increased, from 600 in 2004 to 1000 in 2007, not because more people are doing the bootlegging, but because the combined efforts of police, trading standards officers and trade body operations like the BPI's Anti-Piracy Unit are more effectively targeting the IP criminals. The report's nine proposals aim to make those anti-piracy initiatives even more effective.
Lord Triesman, who, as you all surely know, is our good Minister For Intellectual Property, says in the report: "Whilst the national IP crime strategy is beginning to have a positive effect on the level of IP crime, there is still a lot of work left to do". He adds that part of the work left to do is more of that educating people about the impact of IP crimes, saying: "A key part of our future work must be to ensure that people understand the very damaging consequences of counterfeiting and piracy".
The boss of record industry trade body BPI, Geoff Taylor, welcomed the report, telling CMU: ""The IP Crime Group is a vital and effective partnership between the rights owning community and government. We are committed to taking forward the report's recommendations, particularly those where industry has a role to play in sharing expertise and raising awareness of the impact and activities of IP criminals. Successfully tackling counterfeiting and piracy will be absolutely critical if the UK's knowledge-based economy is to develop in the twenty-first century and so we welcome the Government's on-going commitment to this issue".