Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what progress he has made on the creation of a copyright education programme.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has a programme of intellectual property (IP) education, covering all forms of IP including copyright. This IPO provides teaching resources covering all ages of education, from early years through to university. All elements of this work are developed in partnership with industry as well as IP professionals.

This year the IPO will update its crackingideas.com website to develop it into a portal for all education resources. The portal will target teachers and university tutors, providing them with a variety of resources that link into curriculum subjects to bring IP to life and make it easy to introduce IP issues including copyright into the classroom. It will bring together the various products of the IPO as well as linking to other material developed by partners. A cross section of representatives from the creative industries are providing input to the development of resources and the IPO has already commissioned focus group research with teachers to ensure that all resources are effective. The portal will complement other IPO initiatives to raise understanding of copyright, including Music Inc, a downloadable game about the music industry and the impact of piracy.