Plans to use Trading Standards to crack down on businesses
using unlicensed software are in tatters.
Funding that was made available to Trading Standards by the
government to protect copyright is being redirected by local
authorities, the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) said.
The organisation has raised concerns that the campaign it has
been running with local Trading Standards offices to search
business premises might be derailed.
It had run successful campaigns in Cardiff and East London that
were intended to act as a blueprint for future activity across the
UK.
Under Section 107A in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988, which came into force in April 2007 Trading Standards are
able to enter premises they suspect of holding counterfeit
product.
Money that had been allocated to the programme, which included
£5m set aside by the government in 2007 and a further £7.3m in
2008, has either been cut completely or redirected to other
activities.
"We were fully co-operating with Trading Standards so that
together we could support the legitimate use of software at work
and we were working towards the same ends," said John Lovelock,
chief executive at FAST.
He added that it had been "doing some groundbreaking work and
exploring new boundaries granted by legislation to protect the
software industry in the UK. That opportunity has now gone."
Lovelock said that the problem was the money set aside to
implement the recommendations set out in the Gowers Report to
protect intellectual property had not been ring-fenced.
"So that financial investment is either being axed or redirected
to investigate more visible and consumer-oriented activity such as
health and safety in kebab shops. This was not the intention of
this initiative and it is the equivalent of taking a step back in
time of three years," he said.
A version of this story appeared onMicroScope.co.uk
.