Britain Expands Crackdown on Online Pirates
Hello British online pirates,
Be ready for the wrath! It’s coming your way.
And it’s a serious warning!
The government of the United Kingdom (UK) has published a strategy document that contains provisions that cater to the issuance and effectiveness of DMCA-type notices to the so called online pirates.
The new strategy document is titled Protecting Creativity, Supporting Innovation: IP Enforcement 2020. After implementation, this particular strategy will provide a level playground to the copyright owners so that they are able to tackle copyright infringement issues both in Britain and in a foreign country.
It is interesting to note that the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) have been working actively during the last months, carrying out various operations against those involved in copyright infringement.
During a four year period, the UK government intends to outreach the educational institutes in the country and want them to have a proper curriculum regarding intellectual property rights, that covers all the aspects of the issue, that is continuously hurting the international community. This is one step in the right direction.
The document has five distinctive sections that cover the issuance of takedown notices, dealing with internet pirates, targeting piracy websites, monitoring social media and search engines, and overseas cooperation amongst the so called online pirates.
This whole exercise is aimed at streamlining the cleansing the monster of online piracy. But it will take time as it is a step-by-step process. First there will be a ‘Code of Practice’ in place to direct internet users in the right direction. This will help the government to take direct action against the habitual online pirates.
The strategy document also entrusts the ‘track and take down’ powers to the original copyright holders. This provision is somewhat controversial, as it gives direct powers to the right holders to take legal action against the online pirates, living in the UK.
“We will work with intermediaries, rights holders and trade bodies to highlight all the UK’s legal sources of content”, the government says.
There is also a provision in the strategy document that helps the government to deprive the pirate websites of the money they tend to make by luring internet users to visit and download pirated content. The government intends to go ahead with ‘Follow the Money’ strategy that will help the government to keep a close eye on the financial mechanisms of online pirates.
In addition to this, the strategy document gives a detailed framework to monitor activities of so called online pirates, they carry out on social media websites, like Facebook, Twitter, and other similar websites. The government is also mulling over issuing a separate ‘Code of Practices’ for social media websites.
This is essentially a local strategy document only covers the internet users in the jurisdiction of the UK. But keeping in view the broad consequences of piracy and copyright infringement at a global level, the government understands the importance of collaboration between the UK and other countries.
Under the provisions of the strategy document, the British government reserves the right to send requests to international partners to keep a check on authenticity of a website and carry out a strict domain hosting enforcement action if there is anything that seems to be troublesome.
You can find the strategy document here.
This news was originally published on Torrent Freak.
