Rob Abell, Fair Trading Officer at Trading Standards, says some companies have already been caught using software illegally and they have been fully investigated. “Every year Britain’s digital economy is largely affected by piracy and illegitimate software use: future investment, innovation and people’s jobs are at stake. We want a level playing field for those businesses that are meeting their legal requirements. With the support of FAST we are now looking to do more work in the arena of software theft in the workplace, to minimise the chances of the bad trend continuing, as well as helping and supporting those businesses trying to trade legally and remain competitive in the current economic climate.”

The DEB made the “wash-up” in anticipation of the General Election and the dissolution of Parliament.

The next task of fleshing out the primary legislation through the creation of the necessary codes and procedures can commence.

FAST now looks forward to the challenges of ensuring that this historic piece of legislation is used effectively and efficiently to protect the intellectual property rights of the software industry.

The Digital Economy Bill continues to be debated as it battles to get through the House of Lords, on its journey to becoming one of the most significant pieces of legislation for the creative industries in recent times.

The barriers to the progression of its journey have been due to the extremely divisive issues of the costs of the planned processes, suspending users access to the internet and also the ability of the Government to intervene in the processes at a later date.

FAST continues its backing for this Bill and reaffirms its support for the Government to continue to take a strong hand on this matter to see it as law by the General Election. FAST wants the Government to ensure that when the Bill is passed, it will stand up to the rigours required of this fast moving industry in the long term and not merely pay lip service to a current issue. Legitimate products mean tax revenue for the Treasury.

 In short, Clause 17 must survive to also receive Royal Assent.

FLAG is the Federation Against Software Theft’s Legal Advisory Group established shortly after FAST was founded in 1984, and consists of lawyers from many of the UK’s leading Intellectual Property practices. FLAG meets several times a year to receive presentations on pertinent topics and review legal developments affecting the software industry.

FAST General Counsel, Julian Heathcote Hobbins comments: “The specialist legal knowledge FLAG has on such digital issues will help manage complex issues to bring business benefits to firms at this time of economic instability.”

FLAG determines whether action is required to alert the Government and other agencies to the industry’s position making submissions to Government and the European Commission on law. In 2007 FLAG made a substantial contribution to Gower’s review on Intellectual Property.

“The Digital Group’s first task is to consider the new Digital Economy Bill and specifically if there are material issues with certain clauses” Julian concluded.

Law firms participating in the new group include Beachcrofts, DMH Stallard, Lovells, Palmer Briggs Legal and Wedlake Bell.

• Introducing proportionate measures to reduce the widespread problem of unlawful sharing of creative work online. These measures will place obligations on Internet Service Providers to work with rights holders and if necessary to take technical measures against persistent infringers.
• Protecting authors by extending public lending rights to non-print books such as audio books and e-books.
• Updating the UK’s 300 year old copyright framework through the regulation of collection societies (who collect revenue on behalf of authors) and to make provision for the granting of licenses for “orphan works” – creative works where the copyright holder is untraceable.

In terms of immediate next steps, the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills should provide more details on the Bill which we will circulate. The Speech will also be debated in the Commons which may raise some issues for us.

For further details on the bill please visit no.10 website http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page21348

We are pleased to announce that we have posted our latest response to the Digital Britain Report. We believe this to be an excellent opportunity to finally have some movement in an area that is arduous and complex both commercially and legally.

We now eagerly await the proposed legislation for the illicit p2p dilemma and the introduction of an increase in penalty fines for criminal IP offences.