The Intellectual Property Office has outlined harsher approaches towards copyright, trademark, and patent enforcement in the UK over the next few years.

Rather than the "notice and takedown" approach currently used for handling copyright infringement, the UK government is mulling the idea of advancing it to "notice and trackdown," although the details are not yet clear.

Beyond increased enforcement, it appears that the IPO also wants to educate consumers and users of "the benefits of respecting IP rights, and do so." The IPO wants to get 'em young, too, by encouraging "greater respect" for copyright among children and students.

These new strategies are outlined in a new UK government paper called "Protecting creativity, supporting innovation: IP enforcement 2020." The document sets out how it will make "effective, proportionate and accessible enforcement of IP rights a priority for the next four years."

The policy paper discusses various intellectual monopolies, including registered and unregistered design rights, patent rights, copyright, and trademarks. However, much of the strategy document is concerned with copyright and the digital world: the UK government's first "strategic commitment and objective" is "reducing the level of illegal content online."

Notice and trackdown

In order to do that, the UK government is "reviewing notice and takedown procedures to improve and streamline the process and consider the scope for introducing a Code of Practice for intermediaries." "Notice and takedown" is the current process whereby websites and ISPs "take down" material once they have been put on "notice" that it may be unlawful. This sometimes leads to material being taken down that is not infringing on copyright, since business will tend to err on the side of caution.

The UK government's new strategy is to sharpen these powers by "examining the scope for introducing a system of notice and trackdown to enable rights holders to take action directly against the identified infringer."

What exactly constitutes an "identified infringer," and what proof the copyright holder will be required to provide, is not made clear. There's also the issue of what form the "direct action" against such infringers—or alleged infringers—might take.

"Notice and trackdown" seems to be a completely new concept: even Google search has barely heard of it. Ars spoke to the UK government, to try and track down where it had come from—and what it meant. An Intellectual Property Office (IPO) spokesperson said: "The creative industries are of paramount importance to the UK and the Government is always reviewing ways to help them protect their work. A 'notice and track down' approach, which could make it easier for rights holders to determine the source of copyright infringing material posted online, is certainly an avenue the Government would like to explore." That still leaves many questions unanswered.

IPTV and streaming pirated content

Another proposed action in this section of the strategy document reveals a new concern for the copyright industry: "Developing our understanding of the challenges posed by set-top boxes and IPTV (Internet Protocol Television), and work with partners to tackle this emerging and fast growing method of infringement." As Ars wrote last October, the Court of Justice of the European Union is currently considering whether streamed pirated films watched using such set-top boxes are legal or not.

The section does at least mention that "the availability of legal sources of content is important in changing consumer behaviour because, after price, the availability is often cited as a reason for consuming infringing content." However, this is the only recognition in the document of the public's concerns and requirements, or of the fact that much of the unauthorised sharing of materials has been driven by the copyright industry's languid attempts to embrace the digital world, and by seeing it instead as a threat. Research shows that once services like Spotify are available in a country, piracy tends to drop.

It's also rather telling that there is no mention of the importance of sharing in the modern world, no mention of Creative Commons licences, or of open source. That's odd, since right at the start of the document, the UK government trumpets the fact that "creative industries in 2013 contributed £76.9 billion a year to the UK economy," and yet fully 44 percent—£34 billion—of that came from "IT, software, and computer services." That is, nearly half of those "creative industries" make extensive use of free software code and user-generated material.

The belief that piracy can be eradicated without needing to make the current copyright system fit for the digital age is evident in the fourth "strategic commitment and objective," which is "increasing education, awareness and respect for IP."

Won't somebody think of the children?

Despite limited evidence that the approach is effective, the UK government thinks the way to reduce infringement is "promoting greater respect for IP through products and services aimed at children and students, our future innovators, reaching teachers by providing IP education resources and lesson plans linked to the curriculum via the IPO’s Cracking Ideas portal and supporting competitions."

But any attempt to promote greater "respect for IP" seems rather hopeless when the UK's 2014 private copying exception, which allowed you to make personal copies of your own music, including format-shifted versions, was withdrawn at the behest of the UK music industry.

Against a background of copyright companies happy to turn many people in this country into pirates, the policy paper's focus on "enforcement" makes the UK government look one-sided in its priorities, and indifferent to the concerns of the wider public.