Gordon Brown is set to announce radical changes to the intellectual property and copyright laws in the UK this afternoon as he delivers his Pre-Budget Report. The Treasury has confirmed to IWR that the report will be available at 1.15pm today. 
Reports in today's newspapers expect Brown adopt the majority of the proposals set down by former Financial Times editor Andrew Gowers in his report. Brown commissioned Gowers exactly a year ago to review Britain's copyright and intellectual copyright laws. It is known that the British Library and search giants Google were amongst those that sent submissions of evidence to Gowers.
According to the Times newspaper Brown will be tougher on copyright criminals, appeasing the music industry which has tried to dominate the copyright debate, but will also liberalise the law to promote new business models and make it easier for the information industry to archive and preserve material.
The Trading Standards agency will an extra £5m to police copyright infringements and the penalty for online copyright infringement is expected to be increased from a two year jail terms to 10 years. Gowers is believed to argue in his report that effective enforcement of copyright law is crucial.
The Chancellor may also announce that the law will be modified to include "transformative works", allowing copyright protected work to be used in new ways as long as it does not detract from the original material.
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