MJ Ray wrote:
One of the pro-3-strikes report-leaders is West Midlands Tory MEP Malcolm Harbour, who I think I remember from swpat. [..]
Why is a UK Tory looking such an pro-American entrenched-industry proxy?
Your memory is correct, and I've never figured out where his positions on IP come from. For a Tory, he seems to be quite set on brutal over-criminalisation, although perhaps that's what Europe does for you.
His main interests seem to be the car industry and small business, and his academic background is engineering. I wonder if the IP concerns have come over from the auto side of things (where, imho, there is very little innovation, so incremental advances "need" to be protected), but how that squares with the small business knowledge, I don't know - although many people believe strong IP is good for small business, so perhaps that's it.
Cheers,
Alex.