[Martin Caton in the Chair] — Intellectual Property
10:16 am
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman is making a very interesting contribution to this debate. It strikes me that he is overly pessimistic, given his view, which is absolutely right, that the interest is essentially a slightly chaotic and libertarian organisation. As he made it clear in his example, the power of the individual will overcome the influence of even the biggest and best-funded international organisations. However, does he not have the slight
concern that the crime is not entirely victimless? Much high-profile organised crime and terrorism is funded through the abuse of copyright and patents, and through the lucrative sale of DVDs and the like. It would make more sense to try to address that directly, rather than to look just to uphold intellectual property laws.