FAST welcomes government anti-piracy pledge

Piracy watchdog welcomes IP minister's promise for increased funding over copyright enforcement

The Federation Against Software Theft (The Federation), has hailed government plans for increased funding in the ongoing battle against IP theft.

During a speech made at the launch of the 2007 IP Crime Report today, the Minister for Intellectual Property Lord Triesman, committed to working closely with IP enforcement bodies, and said: "We have seen a major increase in the number of prosecutions under the Trademarks and Copyright Designs and Patents Acts which had been around 5-600 until the launch of the IP Crime Strategy, and this Report shows it has risen to over 1,000.

“I am very pleased to say that we are following this up with a commitment to fully fund the copyright enforcement work of Trading Standards officers to the tune of £7.922 million next year,” he added.

John Lovelock, chief executive of The Federation, said: "This is a major new statement of intent from the government. In 2007 we were led to believe that funding would be what is termed ‘seeding’ funds to help establish Trading Standards in the fight against IP theft. This is a clear statement of intent to fully fund the drive and we warmly welcome this at The Federation.

“One of the biggest issues we have consistently faced is that of convincing business that buying counterfeit and pirated software is not ethical for many reasons. The role for the Government and for organisations such as The Federation is to continue the educational role we have been undertaking to drive that message home.

“One other initiative we broadly welcome is the announcement that the Government will also begin a programme of work on agreeing a national standard measure of the level of IP crime, including industry revenue loss, industry profit loss, criminal market size and criminal gain. Only when the general public is made aware of this sort of information will they really understand that using pirated software costs us all”, he added.