Gordon Brown says 'Mashups are the future'

In his big annual speech today, Gordon Brown, the UK chancellor, said that he wants to spend lots of money catching music and film pirates (who, in the UK, can't be penalised if they sell DVDs with hand-written labels. Only people who photocopy the covers can get in trouble). However, he also said that he wants to make it easier to produce 'transformative works' - i.e. bootlegs and mashups, like the Gray Album, The Avalanches original Gimix, A Night at the Hip-Hopera, and my personal highbrow favourite Glassbreaks. The Times says: "The report suggests that exemptions to copyright law should be allowed for “transformative works”. This would permit the use of copyright material in new and creative ways, so long as it did not detract from the value of that material or offend artistic integrity. It calls on the EU to amend the law to allow for that exception. It would allow “rappers” and other creators to rework old material." (These ideas come from the Gower Report Gowers Review, which Gordon seems to be endorsing)