Mike Weatherley's report on Search Engines and Piracy

We are delighted to see Mike Weatherley MP’s recent report on Search engines and piracy. Mike is the PM’s Intellectual Property Adviser.  Piracy/copyright infringement on the Internet happens with peer to peer file sharing, with websites showing content that infringes copyright, with advertisers putting their ads around illegal content, and with payment systems handling subscription fees for watching illegal content.  Mike’s report  looks at the website issue and how search engines such as Google can do far far more to combat piracy.  Mike supports our work here at the Copyright Hub which approaches piracy in a different way, but complementary to Mike’s recommendations.  We believe that by making copyright licensing much much easier and much much cheaper, there will be more and better and easier to use legal services for consumers.  Ofcom’s research shows that most people will use legal content if it is easy to find, easy to use and sensibly priced – this of course reduces piracy.  Mike is also very strong on getting better copyright education/information/awareness – one of the key themes of the Hub website under the Find Out icon.

You can read Mike's report in full here.