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IAAL - and I do software licensing & copyright.

Prof. Moglen makes the point that mere use of a program doesnt infringe the copying provisions of the Copyright Act. That may or may not be the correct analysis, noonetheless its worth pointing out that this is only true for US law. UK readers may be interested to note that under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act section 17(6) (here)the making of transient or incidental copies is an infringing act i.e. the mere act of loading it into RAM.

In the UK therefore users of 2.4 kernels would not have this defence if SCO is right. The same may be true elsewhere in the EU.

I did that using a script - check it out.

Cool, though you ought to be aware of your legal position if the UK Police wanted access to that data. As far as I understand the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) and specifically this section: 'Failure to comply with a notice'

Depending on the circumstances, you might be sent down for a 2 year stretch if you've wiped the key - even if you've done nothing wrong and the data in crypto is wholly innocent.

The same would of course be true for these ABIT IDE controllers.

I did that using a script - check it out.

Cool, though you ought to be aware of your legal position if the UK Police wanted access to that data. As far as I understand the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) and specifically this section: 'Failure to comply with a notice'

Depending on the circumstances, you might be sent down for a 2 year stretch if you've wiped the key - even if you've done nothing wrong and the data in crypto is wholly innocent.

The same would of course be true for these ABIT IDE controllers.

As I've said before, it's illegal in (at least) the UK to interfere with the operation of a unique ID'd wireless device. Read the Act carefully.

This is certainly a crime under the UK Computer Misuse Act 1990. The fact that fact this guy is Dutch and opperated from the Netherlands is likely little protection since this law is besed on EU Treaty obligations and therefore very similar laws will exist throught the EU. In addition the EU has very comprehensive extradition policy.

Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.

According to this, the UK uses a system of Crown Copyright, which if I'm not mistaken also applies to software created by developers working for the UK government.

Observations for the UK government to note (should any representative thereof read this):

• The GPL does not prevent modification of software for private (intragovernmental) use. All modifications are completely unencumbered, provided the Government does not distribute them.

• GPL software and its derivatives may be sold commercially, and for a profit; however, any sales must be accompanied by an offer to provide complete source code for a reasonable shipping and media cost. For large projects especially, many customers prefer receiving a CD with the software, and are prepared to pay a premium for this method of delivery, rather than wait long periods for an Internet download to complete. The GPL in no way precludes commercial software offerings, despite any loud protest from industry groups.

Try Section 22(2)(f) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

More seriously, if Customes and Excise ever catches up with the vendor, it may have to pay the VAT, and it therefore has an interest in collecting it from you first.

xbox modding is ILLEGAL in any country with even the most basic of electronic intellectual property laws as you are using an ILLEGALLY modified BIOS image.. so please, stop acting as if it is evil of the microsoft oppressors to be claiming this as so.. so believe what you want, but unless you are using cromwell, xbox modding on the most basic level is equivalent to piracy

I live in Scotland. Here we have a fairly basic law called the Sale of Goods Act, which says, in effect, if you sell me something, it's mine and I can do what I like with it. Any 'license' which says I can't is just illegal as in against the law.

So I can change any chip or use the whole thing as a flowerpot if I like, and there is nothing that Microsoft can do about it. This is true in just about every country in the world... except, of course, the <irony>Home of the Free</irony>.

There are no sufficiently muddy puddles within 20 miles of the congestion charging zone.

"Plates fitted or treated in such a manner as to obscure or disguise the mark or make it difficult or impossible to photograph" are illegal.

Such acts *would* be followed up by the law.

I'm sure smearing on mud would count.

See the regulations at


http://www.hmso.gov.uk/si/si1998/19981833.htm

I forgot to mention the minimum of 20 days holiday per year too.

IANAL, but actually I think you are wrong, I think they could arrest you for 'being equipped for terrorism' under the Terrorism Act 2000

It seems from looking at the act that it would be up to you to prove your innocence, and that merely having such an item on the premises is enough to convict you on.

"And while I don't have an objection to being filmed whilst in M&S, it is slightly galling that some private company is filming me when I'm walking down the street."

Too bad. If I want to point a camera at you in public and take a picture that's my right. Otherwise, free press is destroyed.

I'm not sure that is accurate. Given that I am a very dull person, you would have a fair amount of difficulty persuading anyone that it was in the Public Interest for you to photograph me.

Whilst this does not stop you from taking a snap, you would find yourself in somewhat trickier circumstances if you followed me all day, continuously filming me without my permission (which is, in effect, what these companies do). It strikes me that you would fall foul of some of the UK Anti Harassment laws.

> Copyright infringement still comes under CIVIL law.

Hardly - not in the UK, anyway, and not for years now.

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
I don't believe we're the only country in Europe with such a law either.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has had a DMCA-clone on the books for nearly fifteen years: Section 296 of the Copyright Act

Computer Misuse Act 1990 (c. 18)

1.--(1) A person is guilty of an offence if--

(a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer;

(b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and

(c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case.

(2) The intent a person has to have to commit an offence under this section need not be directed at--

(a) any particular program or data;

(b) a program or data of any particular kind; or

(c) a program or data held in any particular computer.

(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to both.

What is the copyright laws applicanle in the UK ?

Copyright Act 1988 states the following :
Duration of copyright in sound recordings and films.

13.--(1) Copyright in a sound recording or film expires--

(a) at the end of the period of 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which it is made, or

(b) if it is released before the end of that period, 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which it is released.

(2) A sound recording or film is "released" when--

(a) it is first published, broadcast or included in a cable programme service, or

(b) in the case of a film or film sound-track, the film is first shown in public;

but in determining whether a work has been released no account shall be taken of any unauthorised act.

source

or taken from the patent office

Copyright in a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work (including a photograph) lasts until 70 years after the death of the author. The duration of copyright in a film is 70 years after the death of the last to survive of the principal director, the authors of the screenplay and dialogue, and the composer of any music specially created for the film. Sound recordings, broadcasts and cable programmes are protected for 50 years, and published editions are protected for 25 years.

Source

So which is it ?

Why cant legislators just make up their minds and give us a definitive answer ?

I guess he's ok if the UK never passes a law like the DMCA

Watch out. The UK has had a DMCA since 1998.

According to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, copyright duration for literary works in the UK expires at the end of the period of 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the author dies, and J. R. R. Tolkien died in 1973.

>Can you define "banned"? In the UK there's no problem buying unlocked scanners (unlike the US IIRC), they used to sell them in my local Tandy (Radio Shack). Of course they may be illegal to use, but I've never heard of that being the case.

Well, I'm basing this on both the reactions and telling-off I got for smuggling in my Canadian scanner in to the UK (nothing is banned in Canada) and what I've read on this site. Supposedly it was made illegal to monitor the police band some time ago, for example.

ze important part:

"Q. Am I breaking the law by owning a scanner?

A. No, but it is illegal to use one to listen to frequencies other than general reception transmissions or those parts of the radio spectrum which your transmitting licence, if you have one, allows you to use. You could be prosecuted for this."

Of course, with the correct licenses anything is legal. Although I am a little freaked out that in the UK you have to pay to use things like CB. ;-)

Pinocchio - Grim

The Adventures of Pinocchio is not by the Grimm Bros. but rather by Carlo "Collodi" Lorenzini. You can read about Collodi, or read an English translation of Pinocchio .

books in the Public Domain that have been hijacked by Disney, and are aggressively defended by them.

The Walt Disney Company does not own the rights to the novel Pinocchio or to the name "Pinocchio". DisneyCo owns only the copyright on its film adaptation[1], including the likenesses of the characters as drawn by Disney animators, and has no grounds to prevent other publishers' film adaptations of the original novel. DisneyCo most definitely does not own the rights to "Noddy", a character created by Enid Blyton that may have been inspired by Pinocchio.

The Jungle Book - Kipling

Which exemplifies . No less than one year after The Jungle Book went PD in a major market, DisneyCo published a film adaptation. The company was obviously waiting for the copyright to run out. Now DisneyCo has closed the door behind itself by pushing copyright term extensions through Congress.

Peter Pan

NOT IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORLDWIDE! The European Union recognizes a monopoly on literary works for the life of the last surviving author, plus the remainder of the calendar year, plus 70 years. Because J. M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, died in 1937, copyright in Peter Pan does not expire in the European Union until 2007, and DisneyCo has to pay GOSH a royalty for every Peter Pan and Return to Never Land disc sold in the EU. In fact, the United Kingdom has granted a statutory perpetual copyright on the work, with royalties going to a children's hospital.

[1] DisneyCo may lose even that if the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft happens to strike down the 1976 extension along with the Bono Act.

Of course, the DMCA is a US law anyway

True in name.

and neither Acorn nor the BBC fall under its domain.

True pedantically, but false in practice. The United Kingdom has had its own equivalent to the DMCA's circumvention ban since 1988, as section 296 of the Copyright Act.

It can surely be enforced in the Crown Courts just as any other breach of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (section 107) is so enforced. I quote (from the HMSO web site):

1. A person commits an offence who, without the licence of the copyright owner
   
   1. makes for sale or hire, or
      
   2. imports into the United Kingdom otherwise than for his private and domestic use, or
      
   3. possesses in the course of a business with a view to committing any act infringing the copyright, or
      
   4. in the course of a business
      
   5. sells or lets for hire, or
      
   6. offers or exposes for sale or hire, or
      
   7. exhibits in public, or
      
   8. distributes, or
      
2. distributes otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright,
   

Non-customers in the United States may be prosecuted under section 506 of title 17 of the United States Code (as long as the value exceeds USD 1000 or the infringement is for "commercial advantage or private financial gain").

These penalties apply both to persons who refuse to send the required consideration and to persons who otherwise breach the terms of the licence (for example by engaging in activities forbidden therein).

Dude, you need to move over here - no laws regarding encryption

There may be no crypto export controls in the UK (I haven't checked that department), but the UK surely has its own DMCA: section 296 of the copyright law.

(Incidentally, section 301 provides for a statutory perpetual copyright on a particular set of works, something that can never happen under the current constitution of the United States.)

I can answer the question for my toshiba laptop with the following from the XP home edition EULA: "The SOFTWARE is licensed with the HARDWARE as a single integrated product and may only be used with the HARDWARE. If the SOFTWARE is not accompanied by new HARDWARE, you may not use the SOFTWARE. You may permanently transfer all of your rights under this EULA only as part of a permanent sale or transfer of the HARDWARE" But hang on ... didn't I pay money (even through an OEM) for that license? Isn't that license then mine to transfer? ..... If it isn't shouldn't it be?
Apart from not buying it, you can also write to the relevent authorities on this. In the UK the Director General of Fair Trading has a responsibility to act in response to "unfair terms" in contracts. And beyond that shouldn't govornment realise that although people do have a right to write software and sell it for money, and in this endevour should get the full protection of the law that the rights should be limited to copying (and a limitation of liability, but possibly a legally enshrined liability in some cases) and not stretching so far as to stop me using the software that has been licensed to be in certain ways. "You can have the leather jacket but you can only wear it on sundays, and only then if I say so ... that'll be fifty quid".
--
You can write to the DGFT at:
Director General of Fair Trading
Office of Fair Trading
Fleetbank House
2-6 Sailsbury Square
London
EC4Y 8JX

Your MP can be found with the constituency locata

Well, the Official Secrets Act is a pretty good censoring tool as was also talked about (sort of) here Relating to a Cryptome article which is a quite recent display of its powers. I'm sure that if you Google for it you'd be able to find many, many more cases.

Yep - it is. To make it worse, there are two laws that literally contradict each other. There is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000(RIPA) act, where as a sysadmin responsible for a lot of users I'm required by law to keep full text mail logs for 28 days (which you are not allowed to delete!). I can be asked by the police to supply log data at any time (admittedly it has to come from a senior officer) and if this happens, I'm not allowed to mention it to anyone that I've been asked to supply the information, including a judge(!) on pain of 2 years imprisonment. (I kid you not).

I think you will be looking at this like we all were and going "HUH??" by now, as obviously it makes thing extremely difficult! Basically you can think of it as a Big Brother type of law. Oh and if you are thinking "no problem - I'll just use crypto" that's 2 years in prison if you refuse to hand over your encryption keys.

Then we have the The Human Rights Act 1998 which strenghens the privacy of the individual. This is the one where I'm not allowed to look at personal information, however under RIP I *can* open up mailboxes if I'm investigating "an incident" however if I see anything else (non work related) while I'm there I'm not allowed to discuss it or use that information in any way. *phew*. Obviously all this stuff can be a nightmare, and so they way that we get around it is to have company policies about email, such as clearly documented allowed uses and document that all mail is potentially going to be read etc, however even that can get awkward as under the Human Rights Act 1998 we have to provide private means of communications of individuals. This includes things like staff having access to personal email (in practice a viral back door nightmare) and guaranteed un-monitored phones (i.e. payphones). All in all it's quite a complicated profession nowadays - lol.

Yep - it is. To make it worse, there are two laws that literally contradict each other. There is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000(RIPA) act, where as a sysadmin responsible for a lot of users I'm required by law to keep full text mail logs for 28 days (which you are not allowed to delete!). I can be asked by the police to supply log data at any time (admittedly it has to come from a senior officer) and if this happens, I'm not allowed to mention it to anyone that I've been asked to supply the information, including a judge(!) on pain of 2 years imprisonment. (I kid you not).

I think you will be looking at this like we all were and going "HUH??" by now, as obviously it makes thing extremely difficult! Basically you can think of it as a Big Brother type of law. Oh and if you are thinking "no problem - I'll just use crypto" that's 2 years in prison if you refuse to hand over your encryption keys.

Then we have the The Human Rights Act 1998 which strenghens the privacy of the individual. This is the one where I'm not allowed to look at personal information, however under RIP I *can* open up mailboxes if I'm investigating "an incident" however if I see anything else (non work related) while I'm there I'm not allowed to discuss it or use that information in any way. *phew*. Obviously all this stuff can be a nightmare, and so they way that we get around it is to have company policies about email, such as clearly documented allowed uses and document that all mail is potentially going to be read etc, however even that can get awkward as under the Human Rights Act 1998 we have to provide private means of communications of individuals. This includes things like staff having access to personal email (in practice a viral back door nightmare) and guaranteed un-monitored phones (i.e. payphones). All in all it's quite a complicated profession nowadays - lol.

The USA was a "leader" in this: by passing the DMCA in 1998, they were easily the first Western nation to ratify this crap into what is now international law.

Unfortunately, the UK is the world leader in fucking up IP laws.

Oh, and you are still paying, what $20/$30 per DVD?

In the United States, because the copyright owner controls only the first sale of an audiovisual work, we have something called "DVD rentals." Sure, rental discs get all scratched up, but last time I rented a DVD that was unplayable ("Disney's Pinocchio" that died during "Give a Little Whistle"), I got a free rental.

Compared to how much for the cinema? (Don't know about US prices, but in .uk it's about £5 ~= $7.50).

That's about right, unless the movie starts before 18:00, in which case you get a $2 or so discount.

So what if a few skip the initial $7.50 preview....

Skipping the previews is a violation of the DMCA, which the UK had before the USA (section 296 of the UK's Copyright Act)

Err... you mean like EU Council regulation 1898/87,OJ L182 of 3.7.87 ?

In the UK, "Soy Milk" now has to be legally labelled as "Soya non-dairy alternative to milk".

Those damned vegans are just terrorists, I tell ya!

how can you have 'official' and 'unofficial' secrets? How can that work? and what secrets are 'official' and which are 'unofficial'?

The unofficial answer is that I could tell you, but I'd have to kill-9 you. The official answer? You're not cleared for that.

But seriously folks... the definition of the types of information that is considered officially secret is within the Official Secrets Act legislation. I've signed the Official Secrets Act (Australian version - actually section 79 of the Crimes Act). And that's about all I can really say about it, apart from the fact that the quoted link's to an unofficial version. The UK version is a bit different, and the quoted link is to an official version.

Unlike many websites, neither has anything to do with secretaries, or secretions.

"It's illegal to format a legal document."

Her Majesty's Stationary Office seems to cope pretty well with releasing laws in nicely-formatted HTML.

The death penalty for all remaining offences was abolished in the 1998 Crime adn Disorder Act

some countries also consider copy-protection as a limitation of the users right for a private copy, ie. allow the user to circumvent the copy-protection.

The United Kingdom doesn't. See Section 296 of the copyright act.

[To view Region 1 DVDs in Region 2,] Modify / flash your player.

This may not be legal in the UK, which adopted a circumvention ban (UK copyright law section 296) in 1988, ten years before the US Congress voice-voted the DMCA.

Do electronics shops in the UK modify DVD players to be region-switchable under the table?

In the UK it has to be shown that the person making the attempts to connect had knowledge that their attempt was unauthorised.

Computer Misuse Act 1990

1.--(1) A person is guilty of an offence if--

(a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer;

(b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and

(c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case.

(2) The intent a person has to have to commit an offence under this section need not be directed at--

(a) any particular program or data;

(b) a program or data of any particular kind; or

(c) a program or data held in any particular computer.

(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to both.

• Threatening behaviour.
  
• Posession of an offensive weapon.
  
• Breach of the Peace.
  
• Behaviour likely to occasion a breach of the peace.
  
• Behaviour contrary to section 5 of the public order act (1986 i think).
  

Check out the Computer Misuse Act - basically, you'll first be breaking into their system (breach of part 2), then you'll be making unauthorised modification of their files (breach of part 3). You'll be looking around 5 years imprisionment and possible a fine.

As far as the UK is concerned anyway, there is no written constitution and no bill of rights therefore anything in the European Convention on Human Rights can and has been overturned by Order of Parliament.

In which case, why is everybody so happily doing it, when the copyright holders could presumably wait a few years, and then take you all to court? No, I refuse to commit a crime to watch a movie that I would be paying the full price of. I will NOT purchase a DVD player or DVD discs until this is sorted out in a sensible fashion. My interpretation of U.K. law is that, in most cases, it expressly permits personal importing of copyrighted works. This should not be taken as legal advice, as I am not a lawyer, but I base that statement on this: http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_1988004 8_en_3.htm#mdiv22 However, I assume that devices to defeat regional encoding of DVDs are illegal. I think that copyright law needs to be updated to address this specific issue. Do copyright owners have the right to restrict importation to the U.K.? Do I have the right to restrict export of something I own the copyright to from the U.K.? Or the import of something I own the copyright to to any country other than the U.K.?

Note : The link isnt to the full act itself, but to the excerpted version provided by JANET/CERT as a referance for academic institutions in the UK with lots of nice hyper links. If you want the real Mcoy in one big lump it can be found here

The UK's Computer Misuse Act says much the same, but I suspect extradicion is out of the question, you could however arrest them as soon as they stepped foot on British soil (or possibly European soil if Eurowide arrest warrants come in to force).

I like the prospect of arresting any RIAA offical entering Europe.

Text of the UK act can be found here. This is incidently the law which has an addition pending atm, specificly making DoS attacks illegal, mentioned in an earlier /. article, which I can't be bothered to try and find.

1 Re-programming mobile telephone etc.

(1) A person commits an offence if-
(a) he changes a unique device identifier, or
(b) he interferes with the operation of a unique device identifier.

(2) A unique device identifier is an electronic equipment identifier which is unique to a mobile wireless communications device.

Read it here. Section 1 makes reprogramming a phone's unique ID illegal and section 2 makes the possession and supply of devices to that end illegal too.

However, the Act makes it clear that for an offence of possession or supply to stand, intent of unlawful use needs to be proved too. It's pretty much equivalent to the "going equipped for burglary" offence really.

The MPAA and RIAA are composed of members who tend to be multinationals. All it takes is one of these organisations to attack a computer in the UK and the UKs Computer Misuse Act kicks in and their members can be tried in a criminal court in the UK, assuming that they have a presence here (they all do). Even better - if it's a .gov.uk machine that gets attacked then our anti-terrorism legislation kicks in and that is some nasty shit to have levelled at you.

I wonder how much trouble it will cause when Sony, Disney and AOL/TW suddenly get hauled into a UK court under the provisions of the Anti Terrorism Act and are effectively barred from trading in Europe - this may sting just a little more than the sales they lose through P2P sharing. What's more this can even be proved due to the UKs wonderful new RIP act. Lots of fun to be had in the near future when multinationals discover that the Internet is not just an American thing and get sued in courts all over the world that isn't the US. Fun Fun Fun

The MPAA and RIAA are composed of members who tend to be multinationals. All it takes is one of these organisations to attack a computer in the UK and the UKs Computer Misuse Act kicks in and their members can be tried in a criminal court in the UK, assuming that they have a presence here (they all do). Even better - if it's a .gov.uk machine that gets attacked then our anti-terrorism legislation kicks in and that is some nasty shit to have levelled at you.

I wonder how much trouble it will cause when Sony, Disney and AOL/TW suddenly get hauled into a UK court under the provisions of the Anti Terrorism Act and are effectively barred from trading in Europe - this may sting just a little more than the sales they lose through P2P sharing. What's more this can even be proved due to the UKs wonderful new RIP act. Lots of fun to be had in the near future when multinationals discover that the Internet is not just an American thing and get sued in courts all over the world that isn't the US. Fun Fun Fun

The MPAA and RIAA are composed of members who tend to be multinationals. All it takes is one of these organisations to attack a computer in the UK and the UKs Computer Misuse Act kicks in and their members can be tried in a criminal court in the UK, assuming that they have a presence here (they all do). Even better - if it's a .gov.uk machine that gets attacked then our anti-terrorism legislation kicks in and that is some nasty shit to have levelled at you.

I wonder how much trouble it will cause when Sony, Disney and AOL/TW suddenly get hauled into a UK court under the provisions of the Anti Terrorism Act and are effectively barred from trading in Europe - this may sting just a little more than the sales they lose through P2P sharing. What's more this can even be proved due to the UKs wonderful new RIP act. Lots of fun to be had in the near future when multinationals discover that the Internet is not just an American thing and get sued in courts all over the world that isn't the US. Fun Fun Fun

There is an argument that sms spam is illegal, by the Telecommunications (Data Protection and Privacy) Regulations 1999.
Section 22 of those regs bans the use of automated calling systems for direct marketing, and sms spam is direct marketing, it is sent by an automated system (there isn't someone sitting there with a list of mobile phone nos. sending "do u want 2 have horny txt sex with me? txt back 4 fun" to each of the numbers) and is a call.
As the spammers use premium rate numbers for the replies (that's how they get their money) they must also abide by the ICSTIS code of practice, which include that they must have clear info about the cost of the 'service', they must give their address, and various other rules.
Also, if you register your mobile phone number with the telephone preference service, anyone sending you sms spam is breaking the law, just as anyone cold-calling a number registered with the tps is (section 25 of the same regulations I mentioned above.)
So, we should be able to get rid of the sms spam quite easily :-)

There is an argument that sms spam is illegal, by the Telecommunications (Data Protection and Privacy) Regulations 1999.
Section 22 of those regs bans the use of automated calling systems for direct marketing, and sms spam is direct marketing, it is sent by an automated system (there isn't someone sitting there with a list of mobile phone nos. sending "do u want 2 have horny txt sex with me? txt back 4 fun" to each of the numbers) and is a call.
As the spammers use premium rate numbers for the replies (that's how they get their money) they must also abide by the ICSTIS code of practice, which include that they must have clear info about the cost of the 'service', they must give their address, and various other rules.
Also, if you register your mobile phone number with the telephone preference service, anyone sending you sms spam is breaking the law, just as anyone cold-calling a number registered with the tps is (section 25 of the same regulations I mentioned above.)
So, we should be able to get rid of the sms spam quite easily :-)

There is an argument that sms spam is illegal, by the Telecommunications (Data Protection and Privacy) Regulations 1999.
Section 22 of those regs bans the use of automated calling systems for direct marketing, and sms spam is direct marketing, it is sent by an automated system (there isn't someone sitting there with a list of mobile phone nos. sending "do u want 2 have horny txt sex with me? txt back 4 fun" to each of the numbers) and is a call.
As the spammers use premium rate numbers for the replies (that's how they get their money) they must also abide by the ICSTIS code of practice, which include that they must have clear info about the cost of the 'service', they must give their address, and various other rules.
Also, if you register your mobile phone number with the telephone preference service, anyone sending you sms spam is breaking the law, just as anyone cold-calling a number registered with the tps is (section 25 of the same regulations I mentioned above.)
So, we should be able to get rid of the sms spam quite easily :-)