The report, entitled Supporting the Creative Economy, said that the greatest effort should be directed towards promoting the UK’s creative industries, adding that US-based web giant Google had failed to assist in curtailing the rampant online piracy that has hit UK creators.
It said: ‘We strongly condemn the failure of Google, notable among technology companies, to provide an adequate response to creative industry requests to prevent its search engine directing consumers to copyright-infringing websites.
‘We are unimpressed by their evident reluctance to block infringing websites on the flimsy grounds that some operate under the cover of hosting some legal content. The continuing promotion by search engines of illegal content on the internet is unacceptable. So far, their attempts to remedy this have been derisorily ineffective.’
The cross-party committee, chaired by John Whittingdale MP, questioned Google’s technical approach to tackling this issue, adding: ‘We do not believe it to be beyond the wit of the engineers employed by Google and others to demote and, ideally, remove copyright infringing material from search engine results.
'Google co-operates with law enforcement agencies to block child pornographic content from search results and it has provided no coherent, responsible answer as to why it cannot do the same for sites which blatantly, and illegally, offer pirated content.'
The report, which was published across two volumes, covered a range of creative industries and outlined potential areas of support. It called for a ‘powerful champion’ of intellectual property (IP) within government to co-ordinate and enforce IP rights in the UK and overseas, suggesting the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) should step up to the role.
‘There should be within government a powerful champion of IP with a duty to protect and promote the interests of UK IP, to co-ordinate enforcement of IP rights in the UK and overseas and to educate consumers on the value of IP and the importance of respecting IP rights. Logically the IPO should take on this role. Yet too often it is seen as wishing to dilute copyright rather than defend and enforce it,' it said.
‘We recommend that the Intellectual Property Office's annual reports include an assessment of the degree of online copyright infringement and the extent to which identified search engines and other internet services facilitate this. We further recommend that the Government consider how it might incentivise technology companies to hinder access via the internet to copyright infringing material.’
Read the full report at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmcumeds/674/67402.htm
It said: ‘We strongly condemn the failure of Google, notable among technology companies, to provide an adequate response to creative industry requests to prevent its search engine directing consumers to copyright-infringing websites.
‘We are unimpressed by their evident reluctance to block infringing websites on the flimsy grounds that some operate under the cover of hosting some legal content. The continuing promotion by search engines of illegal content on the internet is unacceptable. So far, their attempts to remedy this have been derisorily ineffective.’
The cross-party committee, chaired by John Whittingdale MP, questioned Google’s technical approach to tackling this issue, adding: ‘We do not believe it to be beyond the wit of the engineers employed by Google and others to demote and, ideally, remove copyright infringing material from search engine results.
'Google co-operates with law enforcement agencies to block child pornographic content from search results and it has provided no coherent, responsible answer as to why it cannot do the same for sites which blatantly, and illegally, offer pirated content.'
The report, which was published across two volumes, covered a range of creative industries and outlined potential areas of support. It called for a ‘powerful champion’ of intellectual property (IP) within government to co-ordinate and enforce IP rights in the UK and overseas, suggesting the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) should step up to the role.
‘There should be within government a powerful champion of IP with a duty to protect and promote the interests of UK IP, to co-ordinate enforcement of IP rights in the UK and overseas and to educate consumers on the value of IP and the importance of respecting IP rights. Logically the IPO should take on this role. Yet too often it is seen as wishing to dilute copyright rather than defend and enforce it,' it said.
‘We recommend that the Intellectual Property Office's annual reports include an assessment of the degree of online copyright infringement and the extent to which identified search engines and other internet services facilitate this. We further recommend that the Government consider how it might incentivise technology companies to hinder access via the internet to copyright infringing material.’
Read the full report at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmcumeds/674/67402.htm
