New copyright police department in UK
The hard times for all filesharers in the United Kingdom comes. Server out-law.com informs the Government will fund 4,500 new copyright police to conduct raids from April. The move comes as the Department of Trade and Industry passes responsibility for copyright enforcement to Trading Standards Officers. As recommended by December’s Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, the DTI has granted Trading Standards Officers new powers under Section 107A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. It will also give £5m to law enforcement agencies to tackle copyright infringement.
“From 6 April, there’ll be an additional 4,500 pairs of Trading Standards eyes watching counterfeiters and pirates,” said Malcolm Wicks, Trade and Industry Minister. “This will mean more surprise raids at markets and boot sales, more intelligence, more prosecutions, and more criminals locked up. Crimelords currently earn fortunes peddling fake goods, bootleg CDs and DVDs through car boot sales and other outlets,” Trading Standards Institute chief executive Ron Gainsford said. “People should realise that the proceeds from the sale of these goods are used to finance a whole range of criminal activities.”
Wicks said the UK’s creative industries are said to lose £9bn a year from copyright infringement, and that the Treasury loses £300m a year. “IP criminals should know that the UK is not a safe place. Their risk of 10 years’ imprisonment and unlimited fines is very real and from this date forward a markedly higher risk,” he said. I totally agree it’s a good idea to punish people profiting on selling warez or by founding payed sites offering new games and movies to download – let’s just hope it won’t affect “common” p2p users in the UK…
Comments(31)
Oh boy i don’t hope they adopt the same law in Denmark, and does this ONLY count for people selling downloaded material or just gaining any kind of profit from it?
i live in greece
This won’t have any effect on filesharers. The initiative targets gangsters and crime families, not filesharers.
I agree too, as long as they put in prison people that charges for warez material which is free.
I fear it is only matter of time till producer lobbyist spread such a massive persecution all over the Europe Union. I don’t sell either, so it could leave me calm. But maybe they go after illegal sellers in the first line, then it’ll continue with regullar sharers.
For example in Czech Republic police has to check you if someone else blames you. No matter whether he has true or not. It produces a nice atmosphere – anyone who hates you can accuse you and, to be honest, there is always something on your computer something violates license terms.
I hope it does only get the people making profit as personally i think they deserve to get punished. If it also targets regular users
from reading it, it does appear they are going after those selling physical goods that are counterfeit and being sold for money. that’s just stupid, i’d never sell anything i didn’t own, or make a profit from someone else’s work, that just begging for trouble. but as long as it stays in digital format, it non-transferable via hard copy, doesn’t get sold, and is only for personal use, we are safe… for now.
i was starting to get worried, as i thought regular sharers gonna start gettin fined and shit. Phew! Was starting of thinking leaving after getting my degree
Thank god i live in Greece!
[...] “…the UK is failing children and young people in a number of crucial ways“Thus, logic dictates that the UK will take steps towards improving childrens way-of-living, right? Put a few pounds behind it, right?Nope. As of today, an announcement that the “Government will fund 4,500 new copyright police to conduct raids from April” is news. Children suffering? Send them to jail for copyright infringement! Let the folks at the top of the food chain avoid this of course. But the ones lower down? Who use peer to peer software to download a bit of music or whatnot?Jail, or fines. Especially if this UK initiative is similar in any way to any that are happening in the US, where litigation is not just accepted, it’s encouraged. [...]
[...] “…the UK is failing children and young people in a number of crucial ways“Thus, logic dictates that the UK will take steps towards improving childrens way-of-living, right? Put a few pounds behind it, right?Nope. As of today, an announcement that the “Government will fund 4,500 new copyright police to conduct raids from April” is news. Children suffering? Send them to jail for copyright infringement! Let the folks at the top of the food chain avoid this of course. But the ones lower down? Who use peer to peer software to download a bit of music or whatnot?Jail, or fines. Especially if this UK initiative is similar in any way to any that are happening in the US, where litigation is not just accepted, it’s encouraged. [...]
USA makes anything it likes with UK. Poor slaves….
and the french run away at every chance the chicken shittting garlic smelling surrender monkeys so stick that in your baguette and spank it on your mumma arse frenchboy
“UK’s creative industries are said to lose £9bn a year from copyright infringement”
These are more bullshit figures, they seem to think that because I everything I download is something that I would have payed for otherwise, and I think this is emphatically NOT the case with most people, otherwise I’d be spening about 50-100 quid a week on dvds, cds and tv boxsets.
Too true, most films that i “acquire” from the net i would ever pay to see but download just to see what they are like.
Same goes for games that don’t have Demos i’ll happily download the full game to play and if it is good i might buy it for multiplayer but others that are average i would never think to spend £24 on or even buy once they were reduced.
“This will mean more surprise raids at markets and boot sales, more intelligence, more prosecutions, and more criminals locked up.”
Wait a minute – all I’ve been hearing recently on UK news is that jails are extremely overcrowded and that the govt. are introducing fines for assault and housebreaking, etc. to reduce prison numbers. Now they have started this shit – how about instead of “an additional 4,500 pairs of Trading Standards eyes”, they pay for 2,000 more cops to track down and jail the real criminals – ped0s, raplsts and murderers!
The only illegal DVDs I’ve been offered is by wee Chinese folk in the local bars and they got told to fuck off pronto-stylie. I’m sure if they were Tong or Triad henchman, they would have macheted my hands off or something. And since I’m not typing this with my penis, then I doubt they were!
someone please ban plump mumma’s comments. highly racist and not needed.
English TWATS. It’s not like the morons have nothing better to do in that shithole of a place. Only the english would do something this stupid. I feel sorry for the other countries in Britain as the english are a joke.
@ ctignonale When they say England, they mean Britain. The UK has a central government, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are provinces not countries (although it’s unpopular to point that fact out to some people in these islands). If you think the English are dictators imposing their laws on the other provinces, your understanding is screwed up. But if you think the Labour party are dictators imposing their laws on everyone, you might have a point…)
Whoah, whoah, whoah ctlgnonale!! Who the hell are you and where are you from?? Here’s a guess –> The good ‘ol US of A.
If this is true you might just want to think about who are “jokes”.
1/You have a president you didn’t elect
2/You spend millions bombing other countries yet you can’t clean up New Orleans after the hurricane
3/We hear on the news every other week about some maniac shooting up a school.
…and that’s just for starters.
Again, think about just who are “jokes”.
Don’t talk pish sodfather, Scotland has had a devolved government for ten years now and come April we will have full independence from these southern wanks.
Province my cheesy bell-end!
lol hibby i hope you do. As it stand the Scots can make laws that affect them alone but they still get to vote on english laws that don’t affect them at all.
I was happy the way things were but if you want that then i fully support scottish independance, particularly as most of the labour seats are in scotland so we would no longer have to endure blair and his ‘new labour’.
For you it would be bad obviously because we pay for a lot of the stuff you take for granted. And you know those oil fields in the north sea? We still own those and if u take them back all the equipment and decades of infrastructure will leave too.
But as it stands, a situation where a scot going to edinburgh uni gets it free and a english guy going there and having to pay, i fully support scottish independance.
good luck to you.
@ hibby Devolution isn’t independence, it’s a bureaucratic knees-up. I hope you do get independence one day, Scotland would be the most beautiful third-world country. In the meantime, enjoy the cream you get from London’s financial services sector – you won’t have the teat on your lips for long (but nothing new in that, my ginger compatriot)
“This will mean more surprise raids at markets and boot sales, more intelligence, more prosecutions, and more criminals locked up.”
errrrrrmm… where ?? where the hell are they gonna put these terrible criminals ??? all the jails are full up, criminals are being kept in police stations, pedophiles are being set free and murderers released early due to the lack of room, still they dont cost the treasury £300m, as soon as the goverment starts loseing money they come down hard, a killer out of jail saves them £30k a year. This country is fuc*ed.
Your right England is not even a country. It doesn’t exist in international law and the EU, Britain does. And this bullshit about Scots can make laws that affect the english.
uhh, the Poms have been making laws that affect Scotland/Wales/N.Ireland for decades, now they are getting a taste of their own medicine and they don’t like it. Typical English behavior. Even the French have higher morals than the Limies.
Oi, dont blame all of us “limies” some of us are pulling our hair out in frustration, unfortunatly we’re ruled by a buch of greedy, corrupt immoral scumbags, christ, one of em just claimed £44k in travel expenses, thieving bas**rds.
Still im emigrating as soon as possible, but it wont be to scotland, it’s grim up north
the godbotherer – less of the compatriot guff and the the only ginger I’ve got is Irn Bru.
I personally couldn’t give a monkey’s foreskin for what benefits for engerlund or ‘losses’ for Alba there is compared to now. The big thing about independence is that we will make our own decisions, successes or mistakes without having the excuse of blaming ‘the arrogant ones’.
Also – Third World? Don’t think so. Did Eire become third world since going out on their own? They don’t have any discernable national commodities like oil (which we still own – any equipment is worth bugger all without the black stuff flowing through it and we’re talking £9.5bn annual revenue as stated by judas Gordon Brown in 2006 budget). Check the amount of financial clout Edinburgh now has in europe, also the tourist industry is through the roof and house prices/domestic & commercial new build levels show Scotland is the place to live.
Worth the risk in my book – I bet Labour have seriously sweaty gussets come April. No Scots seats, no oil revenue, no Scots soldiers to send to the middle east as cannon fodder. What a fuckin’ bummer!
Hack the planet!!!! They only make films to get money, govermant’s wants there cut, GREED!! God only know when they’ll sort out the reall problems and forget about harmless file shareing.
Jock (scot)(Scottish), in England, (UK)(Britain), Europe, The World
I guess it’s better to go kill somebody than to infringe on copyright !
“Unlimited fines” …. that’s my favorite !
4500 new jobs then? Great. Lets all of us watch eachother so noones feels safe.
misleading quote anyway. 4,500 is the number of trading standards staff in the UK. It just means that they have been given the same powers as they have under the Trade Marks but in relation to copyright, not new staff. Priorities are such that they are only likely to get involved in definite counterfeiting (e.g. making quantities of compilation recordings for sale).