Consultation response for OFCOM July 2012

It was a short-period one, mainly seeking notes and comments on the plans so-far, as outlined in the long document, but I felt the need to add more. Actually, I was half-expecting to have parts of it excluded or ignored, as I experienced with last week’s Consultation with the UK Intellectual Property Office. Instead, the only email I got was a very nice, polite email from Sam Carter of their internet Policy department, because I’d forgotten to check the confidentiality section of the cover sheet.

UK IPO Redacts Responses Critical of Rights Societies

A major tool in policy-making is the Consultation. It is often the only way for regular members of the public to have any sort of input in the legislative process. The problem comes when these consultations are skewed towards a set response, or worse, evidence is ignored or supressed; such as in the publication of responses focusing on Collection societies, where critical comments have been redacted, by the IPO.

Consultation Response to the UK IPO

A bit of a boring read coming up, but a necessary one. The UK Intellectual Property Office had a consultation, dealing with changes to the copyright system, arising from the Hargreaves Report.

The title, "Consultation on proposals to change the UK's copyright system" might seem a little boring, but it's when you get to the text itself, that it turns out to be VERY boring. 120 pages of boring.

Nevertheless, here's our response.