You probably have not even heard of the Gowers Independent review of Intellectual Property, heck it’s not exactly been front page news for either The Sun or The FT after all. But you might want to get familiar with it because its implications are highly likely to get familiar with your business during the course of 2007 if your software compliance is not 100% bang up to date and sorted.
The Gowers Review has very strongly, and very predictably, recommended the implementation of section 107A Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which gives Trading Standards the duty and the power to enforce criminal copyright offences. The next Prime Minister, assuming that Gordon Brown doesn’t do something extremely silly in the next couple of months that is, has also announced that he is to provide an extra £5 million in funding to Trading Standards solely for the purpose of tackling copyright infringement offences.