Ed Vaizey questions challenges to Digital Economy Act

GET YOUR HANKIES READY, the UK media and creative industries will suffer if the Digital Economy Act (DEA) is not enforced in the consumer hating way it has been written.

UK internet minister Ed Vaizey has been questioning the recent legal challenges to the Digital Economy Act, which have come from internet service providers (ISPs) BT and Talktalk, and argued that enforcement of the DEA is vital to stop the creative industries from being ripped off.

Vaizey, who might or might not support calls for new clubs for baby seal fur harvesters, said that the fact that the challenges were over-turned showed how well the DEA was written in the first place.

This, from the man responsible for the internet in the UK, is a shocker, but one that we could have seen coming, particularly since the government is as cosy with record companies as its bum is in the seat of its trousers.

"The attitude of the ISPs is quite odd. BT has spent so much time litigating against an act of parliament and fallen at every hurdle, which is a great endorsement of the work officials did in putting the Act together," said Vaizey on Tuesday.

"There are prominent web sites that stream live football or sell movies without permission from rights holders, and we should look at ways of stopping them. No-one is saying business models don't have to change, but that doesn't mean you sit back and let people rip off other people's content."

The DEA has come in for strong criticism from several quarters, most notably in a report delivered to the United Nations, which argued that it will infringe the rights of citizens by cutting off access to the internet.

Despite this, Vaizey explained that he still favours a "light-touch" approach to internet regulation, and is hopeful that the industry will come together to solve most issues without recourse to legal action.

"There are rumours of a voluntary system being implemented in the US and that would be a significant game-changer. We want industry to find a way forward where the most egregious sites can [be taken offline]," he said.

Vaizey also revealed that the government has received 130 submissions to its consultation on changes to the Communication Act, and said that these will go into the government's green paper to be launched before the end of 2011.

The minister also underlined the government's desire to ensure that 90 per cent of the population have access to 'superfast' broadband of 25Mbit/s and above by 2015, and that spectrum auctions for 4G holdings will go ahead at the start of 2012.

"It is critical for mobile and wireless broadband that we auction off new spectrum at the beginning of next year and we intend this to happen. It has been delayed for far too long," he said. µ