Proposed Changes to UK Copyright

This is pretty important. Back in 2006, Andrew Gowers published his review of intellectual property in the UK. It was a pretty intelligent look at the state of play in this country, although not everyone was happy with what he was recommending.

Anyway, a year has passed and now intellectual property minister Lord Triesman has published a public consultation on proposed changes to law.

The key change that's highlighted is making ripping a CD to your computer legal - as things stand, it's currently illegal in the UK.

Over a range of areas, the consultation is proposing a range of options and seeking views on which it should follow. This is actually a crucial chance to affect UK copyright law. So if like me, you care about this area of law, you need to carefully read through the consultation, and respond by 8 April 2008.

I'll return to this in more detail soon, but I expect that there'll be some significant internet debate in the meantime.