UK government talks up the digital economy

A DIGITAL ECONOMY BILL has been laid out by Lord Mandelson, which hopes to bring Blighty to the forefront of the digital world.

The legislation is spun out of the UK's ambitious Digital Britain project and tackles a range of areas including online piracy, broadband access and the role of communications watchdog Ofcom.

The document was published jointly by the Department for Business and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

"On current definitions our digital economy accounts for nearly £1 in every £10 that the whole British economy produces each year - so our creative and digital industries are key to Britain's future economic success," said Mandelson.

"This bill will give them the framework to develop competitively and make the UK a global creative leader. Better protecting our creative communities from the threat of online infringement will ensure existing and emerging talent is rewarded and will bring new choices for online consumers."

"Creating the right conditions for investment in our communications infrastructure will bring benefits for households and businesses in all parts of the country."

Key amongst the bill's proposals is a drive to crack down on unlawful peer-to-peer filesharing by forcing ISPs to take action against alleged infringers.

Furthermore, the bill wants to modernise the copyright licensing system and introduce an update to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act so that when some coders come up with new ways of 'pirating' content, remedies can be developed and implemented more quickly.

Mandy also hopes to rinse out a few more pennies for the government by unlocking large volumes of previously unusable cultural content, or 'orphan works', where the rights holder cannot be identified or found, for public and commercial use.

According to the Culture Secretary, Ben Bradshaw, the UK's digital economy is worth around eight per cent of the nation's GDP.

"Britain's creative industries have become number one in the world as a proportion of our economy," he said.

"This bill is a key part of the Government's active industrial strategy and will maintain and build on Britain's leading position. It includes measures to ensure universal broadband, the protection of music, film and other creative content and the future of quality local and regional news. The market will not provide these things, only Government action can."

Furthermore, the bill would give Ofcom new duties to promote investment in communications infrastructure and public service content while also requiring a formal assessment of the UK's communications infrastructure every two years.

The document also addresses the fate of the radio spectrum for mobile data services and sets out plans for the charging of periodic payments such as Administered Incentive Pricing on auctioned spectrum licences and allowing Ofcom to levy monetary penalties for failure to meet certain licence conditions.

The bill's details on new powers to regulate and control the UK domain name registries have ruffled a few feathers.

"We believe that the reserve powers set out in the Digital Economy Bill will not be needed and that together with our membership Nominet will be able to introduce the constitutional reforms needed to allow .uk to continue to be operated responsibly and in the public interest," said Bob Gilbert, chairman of Nominet.

"We remain a strong proponent of industry self-regulation as it promotes innovation and allows us to respond quickly to market conditions, yet we recognise the need to retain the Government's trust and confidence in our industry."

Telnic, the registrar in control of the .tel top level domain, argues that the legislation is intended to regularise relations between the UK government and Nominet, but is so generally worded that it falls under the regulations as well, as it is based in the UK.

"Telnic is dismayed at this proposal. In it, the UK government proposes giving itself the power to dismiss and replace the management board of any Registry operating in the UK," Justin Hayward, communications director for Telnic said in a statement.

"The unintended consequences of the generalisation in this bill are severe. No commercial company could accept the risk of the UK government taking over managerial control. The fact that no dialogue regarding this legislation was offered prior to this bill is unfortunate. The industry that operates within ICANN's global control already has a regulatory framework in place."

Amongst these and other plans laid out are a framework for the digital switchover of radio by 2015 and compulsory age ratings for all boxed video games designed for those over the age of 12.

The full Digital Economy Bill can be read in all its PDF glory here. µ