Downing street responds to Parburypolitica Ok not a hand written missive from Tony but do you remember the petitions thing on the Downing street website? Well I signed up to a few of them and I have just got my first response back.

This was the petition

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to create a new exception to copyright law that gives individuals the right to create a private copy of copyrighted materials for their own personal use, including back-ups, archiving and shifting format."

And this is the response

As you may be aware, in December 2005 the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, announced that there would be a review of the intellectual property framework in the UK, led by Andrew Gowers.

The findings of this review have now been published and recommend the introduction of a private copying exception for the purposes of format shifting. This would allow individuals to copy music which they have legally bought on compact disc onto an MP3 player without infringing copyright.

The Government welcomes this recommendation and is currently considering how such an exception should be created in UK law.

A copy of the Gowers report can be viewed on the HM Treasury website

Not bad. I think the petitions thing has been a bit of a quiet success. It the kind of idea that a) I wish I had thought of and b) i'm surprised that no one else thought of sooner.

  ¶ 9:06 pm