I wasn’t aware of the Open Rights Group, so this is certainly something I’ll be investigating. It’s perhaps a little unfortunate that they don’t seem to have the same presence on the internet as the EFF currently do. However, I’d be extremely interested in a UK or European launch of the EFF – please keep in touch regarding this and I’d be happy to contribute where I can.

With regards to my comment on the Corruptibles, I wasn’t aware of the Home Recording Act (but being from the UK, I guess I have a decent excuse!) so this is a very valid concern to be raising – if it’s in your rights, they should not be taking steps to prevent it from happening. I should probably clarify my point however:
I do not agree with content protection such as DRM primarily because it is assuming that the purchaser is going to use the item illegally. This is akin to enforcing speed limiters on cars so it is not possible to break the speed limit on any particular road. As one campaign says – Defective by Design.

Fortunately, there have been some fairly major moves in the UK recently to introduce the concept of “Fair Usage Rights” – for example, until very recently it was technically illegal for you to convert your CDs to mp3 (or any other electronic audio format) – full story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5053658.stm

Again, short-range FM transmitters will be legal here in the UK in just 2 days time – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6177820.stm These devices have been standard fare in the US for many years.

So I think that we’re now finally heading in the correct direction in terms of IP rights – it’s a shame that the RIAA/MPAA seem to be trying to do the reverse in the US. However, for what I consider to be more important issues (such as fundamental privacy protection), the UK is doing very badly. I will be very interested to see what differences that a European launch of the EFF can bring.

As regards your comment about the first example in the corruptibles. The issue here is that, in the US at least, home recording from the radio was part of the bargain that the music industry made in the Audio Home Recording Act (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Home_Recording_Act ). There’s actually a levy on Audio CD-Rs that covers your right to burn CDs of music.

Digital radio broadcasting, at least in the US, is not really that much greater quality than FM, and just as it is in the UK, a track recorded off air will be punctuated by DJs and advertisements. Nonetheless, the response by the music industry has been a very great overreaction: suing Sirius Radio for a receiver that won’t even let you transfer songs to your PC, and attempting to pass legislation which would place draconian controls on home recording (including, for instance, an insistence that when you hit record, you can’t *unhit* record for a certain length of time, to prevent you recording a single track).

There’s a good summary of what the RIAA would like to see here: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004445.php

As you say, different countries have subtly different IP regimes; it’ll be interesting to see if the Gowers Report will address the issue of digital radio in the UK.