An interesting bit of news that I accidentally overlooked is the introduction of a new intellectual property crime unit in the UK. The unit is set to launch in September of this year, and it is assumed that it will have a heavy focus on specifically dealing with digital piracy. The UK will be the first country in the world to have an entire Police unit dedicated to fighting piracy.
Is it necessary? Well it depends.
First there is the practical issue of how it will be run. I can’t see the police getting involved in issues other than digital piracy; disputes over patent designs and more conventional forms of IP theft strike me as more as a civil issue rather than a criminal one. Furthermore, if they do have a suspected incident of digital piracy (or any other form of IP theft), what can/will they do? Will they simply send a letter to the infringer? Or will they immediately cut off their internet access?
Furthermore, it kind of feels a bit like the UK is jumping the gun. While I agree piracy is an issue, I still do not think all the alternatives have been fully explored to warrant an entire police unit. For example, people will argue that having legal alternatives has done nothing significant in fighting piracy, but I say we could have given it a better chance before reaching that conclusion. All we to really have to offer is Netflix, and a handful of other on demand services with really limited libraries.
That being said, I don’t necessarily think that an IP crime unit is a bad idea. It’s a unique idea, an idea that makes me think we’re one step closer to having cyber-police man depicted in many science fiction stories, but not a bad idea. At this point, I’m just curious about how it will work, for all I know it’ll end up being the most effective way to fight piracy.
Source:
http://www.thelawyer.com/news-and-analysis/practice-areas/intellectual-property/ip-crime-unit-launched-by-city-of-london-police/3006577.article
