Vince Cable lends support to reform of copyright laws
Business secretary Vince Cable is reportedly ready to give his full support toward plans for a shake up of Britain’s copyright laws.
The Lib Dem minister is reportedly ready to endorse measures outlined in a report on the matter conducted by Professor Iain Hargreave which calls for, amongst other things, a simplification of copyright law and establishment of a one stop shop for buying copyrights.
It will also deal with consumer practices such as downloading a CD onto an MP3 player, which is currently illegal, and open up libraries of archive material held by broadcasters such as the BBC which cannot currently be exploited because of issues surrounding who the IP rights holders may be.
Cable is now convinced that rapid developments in the digital economy now necessitates an update in the law to “keep pace” with these changes.
In a leaked copy of a speech Cable is due to make tomorrow, the minister is reported as saying: “One of Hargreaves's great contributions has been to show the importance of copyright in less obvious contexts. He describes how academic work on malaria – which seeks to draw on previous research through a process known as data mining – is being stymied by copyright and contract restrictions.”