No. 10 Petitions

Dids McDonald, of Anti Copying In Design (ACID), has started two online petitions. The first encourages the government to criminalise design right infringement, and the second to introduce higher damages. I have signed the second without a moment's hesitation.
The first raises a really important issue. The threat of criminal sanctions certainly works much better than civil penalties, so I can see the attraction.
However, personally, I have always strongly opposed them, not because I am pro-infringer but because criminalising is usually disproportionate to an economic misdeed, and can therefore create martyrs, who have a tendency to turn into folk heroes - like the Pirate Party. The challenge these days is to persuade the public that it is IP creators and those who risk their money to back them, who are the good guys, and it is hard to cast heavy-handed enforcers in that heroic mold.