Ominous little bit on page 99 of the UK Labour Party election manifesto. Didn't hear anything about it in the election campaign - but then again its not exactly a bedtime read. Presented on their web site in a horrible Flash electronic book format. I have a nasty fear this means the UK government is going to try to revive the long contested EU copyright proposal during their EU presidency. (For a quick summary of Labour Party manifesto ICT policy commitments see Catherine Howell's excellent and niftily named blog "Ida takes tea".)

"We will modernise copyright and other forms of protection of intellectual property rights so that they are appropriate for the digital age.We will use our presidency of the EU to look at how to ensure content creators can protect their innovations in a digital age. Piracy is a growing threat and we will work with industry to protect against it.