3. The aim of this Review is to understand how the UK's IP framework can better support innovation and growth. It has a crucial and serious aim and so its pretty certain that its recommendations will be taken seriously.

4. The Hargreaves Report contains 10 key copyright recommendations, ranging from an exception for text and data mining to a proposed solution for orphan works. Unlike the previous reviews, the call by Hargreaves for a robust evidence base, means that all the recommendations are fully substantiated and arguements firmly made linking the new proposed exceptions to increased innovation and better growth. The exceptions are very favoruable to public sector organisations (see my blog at: www.web2rights.com/blogfor the possible impact of the recommendations on Open Educational Resources), and there will be alot of pressure from the public sector for these recommendations to be implemented

Nice summary by Naomi Korn on the MCG@jiscmail.ac.uk mailing list about why the Hargreaves report is likely to have more impact than other recent UK reports.

Hallelujah! At last we are getting somewhere. The notion that laws framed in an era when copying was difficult, imperfect and expensive could work in an era when copying was effortless, perfect and cheap was a proposition that only imbeciles and industry lobbyists could entertain. But up to now, our politicians subscribed to it.

Hargreaves usefully explains why this ludicrous state of affairs has persisted for so long. "Lobbying," he writes, "is a feature of all political systems and as a way of informing and organising debate it brings many benefits. In the case of IP policy and specifically copyright policy, however, there is no doubt that the persuasive powers of celebrities and important UK creative companies have distorted policy outcomes. Further distortion arises from the fact (not unique to this sector) that there is a striking asymmetry of interest between rights holders, for whom IP issues are of paramount importance, and consumers for whom they have been of passing interest only until the emergence of the internet as a focus for competing technological, economic, business and cultural concerns."

Nice write-up in the UK Observer about the recommendations of the Hargreaves report on intellectual property law in the UK.

So, the stupidity is finally laid bare... now we have to see if we can actually make some progress. I'm mildly hopeful.