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Melanie Johnson MPAGM of the Alliance Against Counterfeiting and Piracy |
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Thank you for inviting me here today to address the AGM of the Alliance Against Counterfeiting and Piracy. I have been in the Department of Trade and Industry for just over a month now and, as you will understand, have been on a steep learning curve. The range of responsibilities that fall to the Department is enormous and the decisions we may take consequently have far reaching effects. We have a number of important objectives but our over-arching objective is to help UK business get to the future first. We must, of course, have regard to the wider community in achieving this and my personal responsibility for consumer and competition policy will play an important part in ensuring the playing field is level and fair for all. My Ministerial responsibility also encompasses intellectual property or IP policy and I know that making sure the IP system is right will play a vital part in delivering the Department's objectives. We must make sure that IP protection continues to play its essential role in encouraging and rewarding creativity and innovation in the knowledge economy. IP rights ought, of course, to be capable of being enforced, including by criminal sanctions when appropriate, so I am here today at your kind invitation to look at the very specific issue of IP crime. I know that last year you had a Home Office Minister, Charles Clarke, to speak to you so it is with some trepidation that I, a DTI minister, step into this underworld of criminality! But leading on IP crime issues is a DTI responsibility so it is also with enormous pleasure that I have accepted the invitation to stand before you today at your AGM. I know that the Alliance Against Counterfeiting and Piracy represents a broad cross-section of all the industries affected by IP crime so I particularly welcome the opportunity to address all the key industry players together on this very important issue. I believe you have quite rightly received considerable support from the DTI in recent years and I certainly hope that can continue. I know that Kim Howells took a very keen and active interest in the fight against counterfeiting and piracy. I hope that I too will be able to champion your concerns with the same commitment. Today you have announced a new industry estimate of the effect of IP crime on all the industries represented by the Alliance. Your estimate of £9 billion per annum in losses to UK industry would, indeed, translate into about £1.5 billion in lost tax revenues. This is a significant amount of revenue that could, of course, have been spent on schools or hospitals. As I leave here today, I can assure you, therefore, that I will not be dismissing this as a subject that I can forget until the next time we meet. There is still much to be done and the figures you have produced today show that IP crime continues to be a serious problem for us all. But it is, perhaps, worthwhile taking a moment to consider why counterfeiting and piracy is a serious problem for us all and why I want to shatter the cheeky chappy image fostered by lovable TV rogues like Only Fools and Horses'Del Trotter. Counterfeit, pirate and bootleg goods may be cheap to buy but can often prove costly in the long run. The makers and sellers of fakes are not concerned about consumer safety. They sell what are often shoddy goods that can cause injury and distress to consumers as well cut the profits of legitimate businesses and so lead to job losses. The links between this area of crime and other serious organised crime are also now clear. Consumers need to understand that when they buy fakes they may be supporting drug dealers and money launderers. IP crime is not a Robin Hood crime and the Alliance is, of course, a key player in getting this message across. I understand, however, that one of the reasons for formation of the Alliance was in order to lobby Government about changes to the law. Although a worthy aim for an industry body (although hard for Government that is on the receiving end!), I am very pleased that the Alliance has taken on many other roles since its formation just two years ago. I know that the Department has found it immensely useful to be able to deal with the Alliance about many issues, knowing that the Alliance can act in a representational role for industry in this area. I congratulate all the members of the Alliance for achieving such a close and successful way of working in such a short time. I will be mentioning some of the successes later. I would now like to turn to what I am sure you really want to hear today, the future and how I intend to help in the fight against counterfeiting and piracy. Arguing for legislative changes was the raison d'etre of the Alliance's formation so I will look at the legislation first. You will all know that the Government supported some changes to the legislation relevant to IP crime earlier this year. Increased maximum penalties for copyright offences, improved police search warrants and improved provisions on forfeiture of infringing goods were in the private member's bill sponsored by Andrew Miller. These changes received full Government support. The measures were, of course, rationalisations rather than completely new departures, copying the best provisions already in one area of IP criminal law into the others. Although they are not, therefore, what might be seen as dramatic changes to the law, they are nevertheless worthwhile. They will bring greater transparency to the law and should help significantly in terms of deterrence. I can confirm today that Government support for these changes remains firm and if there is another private member's bill this session, we stand ready to support it. I am sure you will understand that there are many pressures on the Government's legislative programmes and I can't make any firm commitments on Government legislation at this stage. I know that when the Alliance first lobbied Government about legislative changes, what I might call its 'shopping list' was rather longer than the changes we supported in the Miller Bill. Government does, of course, have to have regard to wider interests when looking at legislative changes (or any other policy issues). However, I also know that my officials have been talking to the Alliance about possible modified approaches in some areas. We will continue to explore these to identify what we can do to help solve the difficulties with enforcement against IP crime that the Alliance has identified. We have additionally been looking at the legislation to see if it properly reads on to what I might call virtual IP crime, IP crime on the Internet. We believe that some modifications might be necessary in this respect. This strand of reform is particularly relevant to the DTI's aims and interest in e-commerce. We want moving into e-commerce to be a success for business. We don't want criminals to see e-commerce as an easy option for them. There are, of course, EC Directives that are relevant here. The recently adopted copyright Directive and the e-commerce Directive will both help, but in addition we need to make sure there are no loopholes in the IP crime provisions. The details of a consultative exercise about some further, more complex changes to the law specific to IP crime are therefore being worked up at the moment. This will be looking at how to tackle some of the problems with the current law that I know are of concern to you. Any legislation resulting from this further consultation will be in addition to legislative changes relevant to rogue traders who have failed to meet their legal obligations that were first highlighted in the consumer White Paper of 1999. We are committed to giving enforcement authorities powers that allow them to act quickly and effectively against traders whose behaviour harms the interests of consumers. Rogue traders do, of course, come in all shapes and sizes and the rogue trader provisions are not specifically directed towards counterfeiters although they will certainly help in this area. I have also said that we must move public opinion away from the idea of counterfeiters as lovable rogues and this is true for those who trade in any area disregarding their legal obligations. We will have to bear this in mind as we bring forward our proposals that will enable enforcers to order greedy racketeers to stop their illegal operations immediately. With an arsenal of improved specific provisions on IP crime and improved provisions to fight illegal trading practices generally, we will, I hope, have enhanced the weapons available to those who fight IP crime. As well as getting the legislation right, I know that it is extremely important that the dialogue between the Department and all those in both the public and private sector involved in enforcement against this crime continues. Sometimes that dialogue might require specific contact with specific groups, but at other times the forum needs to be wider. This brings me onto another area that I would like to highlight where this face-to-face dialogue with many interested parties can happen in a more formal setting. The Counterfeiting and Piracy Forum was set up a little over a year ago and this is an initiative I fully intend to support. The CAP Forum as you know comprises representatives from industry, that is Alliance members, but also public sector enforcers, consumer and retailer representatives as well as Government. The Government involvement is, of course, provided by the Patent Office that advises me on IP policy so I have a close involvement with the proceedings. The CAP Forum can discuss any matters that are relevant to better enforcement against IP crime, including anything relevant to prevention of the crime in the first place. I know that there is a similar group, the Product Counterfeiting and Piracy Sub-Group of the Joint Action Group on Organised Crime. This sub-group, as you will know, is police led but also involves the full and active participation of Alliance members. I understand that the JAG sub-group was instrumental in agreeing and signing, just before the General Election, a Memorandum of Understanding between all those involved in enforcement against IP crime. I welcome this MOU as a wonderful achievement and would like to thank all those who helped to deliver this document that will push forward the co-operative working between the public and private sectors. I am sure that, with this MOU, the day-to-day enforcement against IP crime will become more and more effective. I am particularly pleased that the MOU was endorsed as supported by the DTI, although in the end it was not possible because of the timing for Ministers or the DTI to help publicise this wonderful achievement. We are, though, no longer in an electioneering period so I and the Department stand ready to help with the implementation of the MOU. The JAG sub-group has therefore demonstrated to us all that it is an effective and useful forum in which to deliver operational improvements to enforcement against counterfeiting and piracy. In recent months, there has, however, been an increasing tendency for the CAP Forum and JAG sub-group to look at very similar issues such as the sharing of intelligence. I believe that we have, now, found a pragmatic and elegant solution to this overlap. The CAP Forum will now draw back from looking at operational issues - these are clearly eminently suitable for the JAG sub-group - and will concentrate on strategic issues. I hope it will be possible, though, to maintain a close link between CAP and the JAG sub-group and ideas and issues need to be able to flow from one to the other and vice versa. My officials are involved in both groups, leading one and participating in meetings of the other. To ensure full cross-fertilisation, we will, however, be making sure that any JAG sub-group members not already in the CAP Forum are invited to participate in all the work of CAP. Apart from a surfeit of acronyms I think this solution will work! I hope that it will be possible to take forward in the CAP Forum some of the issues where we can draw on the expertise of the wider representation that this group has. It will also be a useful forum for discussing legislative changes and how we can link our work into initiatives in Europe and internationally. We have, I believe, some good experiences to share with other countries, such as the MOU, and we must use every opportunity we can to influence what happens in other countries in the right way. IP crime doesn't respect borders and we must make sure that any good work we do in the UK is not undone by enforcement failures in other countries. One of the areas that I hope the CAP Forum will be able to concentrate on is awareness about IP crime. In this room today, I think we will all agree that IP crime is an issue for us all. I have already mentioned why this is so but let me repeat this very important message. IP crime affects industry, that is the Alliance members, but it also affects consumers, legitimate retailers, employees and the unemployed, and Government. As an ex-Treasury Minister I agree that Government should take seriously the losses to the exchequer in taxes that are not paid due to IP crime. However, I know that it is hard to convince some of these other groups that IP crime is an issue for them. The Alliance has, I know, helped my officials compile impressive lists of the wider effects of counterfeiting and piracy - dangerous and damaging fake goods, fakes that are poor quality or do not work, jobs lost or not created, links with serious organised crime. I believe also that there have been some successes in raising public awareness such as the Crimestoppers campaign in the north-west last year. We must build on this success and I hope that members of the Alliance will do all they can to get the right messages across. I have asked that public awareness of IP crime be put firmly on the agenda for the future work of the CAP Forum. We need to work together so that consumers are left in no doubt about the consequences of buying fake goods. We need to work together to tell consumers how to identify and avoid fakes. I hope that those members of the press here today will help us get these important messages across as we know that it will be a long and hard battle when many fakes can seem like a real bargain for consumers. Keeping IP crime high on their agendas will not, I know, be difficult for members of the Alliance. However, despite all the very good reasons why IP crime should be taken seriously, I know that this does not always happen on the agendas of other organisations. I am pleased, therefore, that the National Criminal Intelligence Service has had more co-operation from Alliance members than ever this year to help compile the annual threat assessment. Making sure that IP crime features where it should in an influential document such as this is important if IP crime is to be taken seriously at the heart of Government. I know that IP crime was assessed last year as having a high impact, but the priority assigned for the crime is also important. I therefore await with interest to see the threat assessment this year and whether the National Criminal Intelligence Service considers that the threat from IP crime should be prioritised more highly. I would like to end by urging the members of the Alliance to remain in touch with the organisations that matter and to get involved in the work that can deliver results in both the short and long-term. There is a very good and strong relationship between the Alliance and the Department and this must continue. Relationships with organisations like the National Criminal Intelligence Service are important too. And pursuing the awareness agenda is essential in my view, however difficult and slow to deliver results it might seem. I know it takes time and commitment to get involved in areas that bring no immediate returns on enforcement, but I believe this is important. I look forward to working with you and hope that together we can achieve real successes in the fight against IP crime. |
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Other speeches by Melanie Johnson MP
(the following are available from the archive) |
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