Consumer Focus

Consumer Focus has produced a report regarding the state of copyright laws in the UK. It says

The UK’s copyright laws have been rated “the worst, by far’” in a survey of 16 countries, beating the emerging economies of both Thailand and Argentina to last place, say Consumer Focus and the Open Rights Group today.Ironically it was the UK that first developed copyright law as long ago as the 16th century, but while other nations evolved their laws in line with advances in technology, new media and everyday practice, the UK has singularly failed to keep up.As a result, millions of unsuspecting UK consumers are being needlessly criminalised by out of date intellectual property laws. It is currently a copyright violation to rip a CD that you own on to your PC or iPod – even though over half (55%) of British consumers admit to doing it and three in five (59%) think this type of copying (format shifting) is perfectly legal.

While I understand the need to protect intellectual property I also welcome the opportunity to be able to legally utilise the items that I've purchased in a reasonable way. All good then? Well .. .. ..

Have a quick look around the Customer Focus site and you'll see the link to the National Social Marketing Centre (NSMC, although the url is NSMS for some reason), a joint venture between Consumer Focus and the Department of Health which describes social marketing as

an adaptable approach, increasingly being used to achieve and sustain behaviour goals on a range of social issues.

While formal definitions vary, three key elements commonly appear:
1. Its primary aim is to achieve a particular 'social good' (rather than commercial benefit), with clearly defined behavioural goals.
2. It is a systematic process phased to address short, medium and long-term issues.
3. It uses a range of marketing techniques and approaches (a marketing mix). In the case of health-related social marketing, the ‘social good’ can be articulated in terms of achieving specific, achievable and manageable behaviour goals, relevant to improving health and reducing health inequalities.

All of which I find quite worrying. On the one hand you have a statutory organisation that is campaigning for a fair deal for consumers but on the other they are involved in social manipulation through marketing. One to watch out for I think.