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.