The UK is the video surveilance capital of the world. They have more video cameras there than even china. Unfortunately the London of George Orwell’s 1984 is becoming somewhat of a reality there. More so now, with the telegraph reporting that some residents are being given access to the live video from the cameras. And it is not like these are just the cameras outside their own house – it is over 400 households given access to the regions cameras.

The papers are also reporting that cabinet is approving some changes to the copyright act that would strengthen the laws over file sharing and piracy of media. On the plus side though, consumers might be given permission to change the format of stuff they already own, like moving VHS to DVD, or from CD to MP3 for an iPod.

It will be interesting to see the details of the proposed legislation as soon as it becomes available. Unfortunately, the Copyright Act is always an interesting read. In my work it is important for me to know what the law actually says. And in many cases the results are somewhat surprising…