Introducing… the Digital Economy Bill
Hi! This is an update from the Digital Economy Bill team. On Wednesday, the Queen’s Speech confirmed that the Digital Economy Bill will be part of the Government’s programme for this session of Parliament – the one that takes us to the next General Election.
Today, the Bill is published. It is made up of the actions in the Digital Britain Final Report that need primary legislation. That means it covers a really wide range of areas – from digital radio, to copyright reform, to spectrum, and then some – all focused on supporting the nation’s digital future. But it doesn’t deal with those things that didn’t need primary legislation, such as broadband and local newspapers. And, it doesn’t deal with the Next Generation Levy, which will be in the Finance Bill 2010.
Stephen Timms introduces the Bill (Biography)
We think the Bill does some really important things, helping businesses and consumers to make the most of the ‘digital economy’ – the creative industries, digital communications, and public service broadcasting. We want people to understand the Bill. Understandably there will be a wide range of views – and we’ve certainly had some lively responses to our consultations on some of the issues. There has already been a lot of debate over what the Bill – it’s more than just unlawful file sharing and regional news. So how can we answer your questions on the Bill? We’d suggest, as a first port of call, the factsheets we’ve written to explain the key points on each area.
We’re looking forward to Parliament’s debates and discussions around the Bill. We hope you’ll find this a useful resource – and if we can help, please leave a comment.
You need a clear link to the BIll text. I haven’t found it yet. I’m sure the explanatory documents are useful, but we need to read the Bill to judge what’s going on.
From the copyright factsheet “It includes a power that will allow the Secretary of State to amend the CDPA”. Why should the public accept an unelected and twice disgraced politician being given the power to rewrite laws, when it’s abundantly clear that he doesn’t understand the issues?
How can the arbitrary target of a 70% reduction in file sharing be judged when no accurate measurements are in place?
Why is independent research on the benefits of file sharing being ignored in favour of biased “industry estimates”?
What exactly is a ‘first tier tribunal’? If that phrase does not mean ‘a court of law with a judge, jury and a presumption of innocence until proven guilty’, what is the justification for throwing out one of the major pillars of the British legal system?
The factsheet refers to “Educating consumers” on “the importance of copyright and advice on how to secure their Internet connection” and “society should benefit from the increased awareness of the importance of copyright”. Isn’t it morally wrong and an abuse of power to favour a pro-copyright political stance by mailing political propaganda to alleged infringers? Why should consumers not open their internet connection over wifi as a service to the community, and why would they not be treated as common carriers when they do so?
@ Jim,
Apologies – the Bill is technically (c) Parliament, and so we couldn’t host it directly. Parliament have now put up a website for the Bill - hope that’s helpful if you haven’t seen it already.
There’s a great discussion/set of criticisms on Reddit, here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/a6sk6/britains_new_internet_law_as_bad_as_everyones/
I suspect an environment where full names aren’t required for comments (like they are on this website) will generate a more realistic response
It’s a shame that the Digital Britain bill has come down to ultimately being a license to change laws willy-nilly to deal with piracy – (the latest being cyberlockers – which appears to be another unquantifiable problem – if a problem at all).
One hoped that perhaps this could have been the catalyst to encouraging those currently marginalised to get online (this won’t happen when ISP’s increase prices to pay for all this extra reporting), to encourage e-commerce (the only industries which appear to be benefitting are the traditional ‘creatives’).
The fear remains that allowing the secretary of state to amend laws on the fly is both deeply undemocratic, entirely unnecessary (copyright infringement is copyright infringement regardless of the medium), and potentially paves the way for the next government to allow Murdoch to take on the BBC/Google.
It is a shame that the legacy of Digital Britain will be at best, a decrease in piracy, and at worst the criminalisation of thousands of kids (and no internet for their families) for the benefit of a handful of foreign companies.
This is the worse thing I have ever heard about. I can only agree with Andrew Robinson that the people who wrote this bill a) Don’t understand the technology and the social aspects of it. b) Are being lobbied by industry (and I can only imagine the amount of back handers that are going on to get this pushed through). c) Wish to restrict un-censored communication between people. d) Are giving all this power to industry and the Secretary of State which is blatantly going to be abused and covered up.
What happened to this country? Seems we are becoming the western equivalent of China.
And going on from the comment by Henry Cook, the point of the internet is anonymity but I guess I’ll be flagged as a terrorist now!
Congratulations on submitting to the big corporates at the expense of the people that voted this government into power! It would be nice if MPs had a clue what was involved in filesharing and the real problems with piracy (An understanding of technology in general would also be nice but we can’t have it all…) Please can someone post the calculations involved in getting to the figures that the Recording industry claims it is loosing due to piracy? However I suspect that no one has actually gone through these calculation and have instead simply took the recording industries word for it. How can we have laws passed that are based on completely fabricated figures? The music industry is not and I stress not loosing anywhere near their claimed figures (and in fact may actually be profiting from it). Artists make more money from concerts than they do from record sales and they always have and it is also easier than ever for artists to record and distribute from their own bedrooms with out any input from money grabbing music companies. If the music publishers were actually interested in the well being of the artists then they would pay them more for the record sales rather than trying to reduce the amount they give artists.
Their whole charade is designed to help prevent the publishers from loosing control in an age where artists and consumers no longer need them. It is also designed to help put into place, laws which will eventually help the music publishers achieve their holy grail of forcing consumers to purchase separate copies for each device. Want a copy on CD then buy it, want a copy for your pc then buy it again, then again for your car, and yet again for your mp3 player! Why on earth were there no consumer rights built into this whole anti-piracy bill? For instance why was their no provision built in to make it legal to make fair use copies of music and films etc? Why should I be deemed a criminal for simply ripping my CD for use on my mp3 player? (Which ironically I imagine most MPs and Music execs, police, judges and lawyers are also guilty of). How about asking the music industry for a compromise of dealing with their issues if they also allow a law to be passed to enable fair use? I would make a large bet that they would refuse such a compromise as their main aim is to force people to buy multiple copies….
And I will not even start on why it will be so hard to enforce these new laws and the implications of the many false positives that it will generate, or even the fact that there are many ways to fileshare while hiding all your details using encryption etc.
However if those that put this bill in place can answer my rather simple question about the music industries calculations then I will at least be partially happy. (Neither the industry or the government have these figures though do they…………?)
Hi,
I live in a village just outside of Leeds which is not served well by BT as it’s a TPON area with 6km of copper overlay providing <1mbit broadband to a fraction of the properties.
We're looking at setting up a community broadband initiative to address this and the biggest expense for us is installing a fibre line. What I don't understand, is the fact that our local village school (which has under 200 pupils) already has fibre to the premises and uses a TINY fraction of its capacity, yet there appears to be no way at all for us to light up cores from that fibre, i.e. use the same cable but in a way that seperates the community broadband service entirely from the LearningStream connection the school is using.
If you wanted one very simple, cheap, cost-effective way to promote next generation broadband, you could just make it easier for Community Interest Companies and public sector bodies to engage the unused capacity on existing fibre paid for our of the public purse.
I mean, it is rather demented that you're talking about a tax on every home to pay for next generation broadband with the "usual suspects" charging ludicrous sums of money for a completely seperate cabled solution to a rural community, when we project the cost of a fixed wireless broadband solution to the same community if provided through a CIC and existing fibre, would be least 80% cheaper!
While the US is making much effort to enable wi-fi in public spaces so users can browse the web and skype free of charge across the nation, the UK believes policing themselves into further control-freakishness is the way forward. Digital Britain, after more than 4 years in the UK, remains to me no more than a marketing concept. It would be so much more sustainable to move on from over-regulation to more meaningful ways of public education.
Apart from that – your factsheet PDFs do NOT open in a new browser window as announced but go straight into download – another indicator that education is the key rather than regulation.