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Sections
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Executive Summary
- Being Digital
- A Competitive Digital Communications Infrastructure
- Radio: Going Digital
- Creative Industries in the Digital World
- Public Service Content in Digital Britain
- Research, Education and Skills for Digital Britain
- Digital Security and Safety
- The Journey to Digital Government
- Delivering Digital Britain
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About this site
Creative Industries in the Digital World
Towards a new framework for content
“This is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears: big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen.”
Clay Shirky, Blog Posting April 2009
AMBITION: TO MAKE [...]
Protecting and rewarding creativity
13. Already today around 7.5% of total UK music album purchases are digital and a smaller but rapidly increasing percentage of film and television consumption is streamed online or downloaded. In Digital Britain, with the Universal Service Commitment delivering video quality broadband and most households having much greater bandwidth, streamed, downloaded or searched-for content will [...]
→ Read moreThe legislative proposals
24. The Government is therefore consulting on a proposal to legislate to give Ofcom a duty to take steps aimed at reducing copyright infringement. In order to fulfil that duty Ofcom will require ISPs to accept two specific conditions. These are the obligations set out in the Interim Digital Britain Report, namely to notify account [...]
→ Read moreLegislation to reduce unlawful peer-to-peer file-sharing
The key elements of what we are proposing to do are:
Ofcom will be placed under a duty to take steps aimed at reducing online copyright infringement. Specifically they will be required to place obligations on ISPs to require them:
to notify alleged infringers of rights (subject to reasonable levels of proof from rights-holders) that their conduct [...]
Other rights issues: Fair use
32. A number of people have raised with us during this process whether the current IP infringement framework reflects the digital environment, and whether provisions for ‘fair use’ by citizens are reasonable. The Government has considered whether, in the round there should also be a modernisation of ‘fair use’ rights for consumers to reflect the [...]
→ Read moreModernising licensing
33. The UK copyright framework is 300 years old this year. But it has not stood still. Copyright has had to evolve continually to meet the technological challenges of photography, the gramophone, film, television, the video recorder, the photocopier and latterly the Internet and the World Wide Web. And copyright needs to evolve further in [...]
→ Read moreIntellectual Property Office’s Copyright Strategy
David Lammy MP launched the copyright strategy work in December 2008 so that the UK could build a long term picture for copyright and ensure the system evolves to reflect the digital age.
The IPO has engaged widely with stakeholders, through the Issues Paper that was published in December 2008 and through a series of independently-facilitated [...]
Orphan works
39. Orphan works are works that remain in copyright where, even after a diligent search, the owner cannot be identified or found. Anyone who uses orphan works on a commercial scale currently risks not only civil but also criminal liability.
40. It is frequently assumed that orphan works consist of largely forgotten books in the stacks [...]
Matched penalties for online and physical copyright infringement
48. The Interim Digital Britain Report clearly identified the need for an enforcement framework which is the product of the digital age; it needs to recognise the rapid growth in digital accessibility and outlets and the parallel growth in online IP crime. At the same time, the current criminal legislation presents an anomaly in failing [...]
→ Read moreA role for rights-based funding mechanisms?
53. The Interim Digital Britain Report noted the impact of the changing economics of the digital market on the funding of content. Ofcom estimates that total spending on UK originated content was £314m lower in 2008 than in 2004. The Government invited views on possible alternative funding mechanisms for content in the digital age. Three [...]
→ Read more