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Digital Britain

Britain was traditionally influential in European telecoms policy. It was a British Commissioner, Lord Cockfield, who established the Single European Market, that paved the way for a de-regulation of telecoms across Europe. 

Nowadays,  the policy focus is all about online safety and regulating big tech platforms. It's a field that has been developing since 2015  when the UK proposed the first Online Safety Bill - the predecessor to what is now the Online Safety Act 2023. You can read about it in this section  and go here for the latest on Online Safety  

This section contains in-depth discussion of the Digital Economy Act 2010,  a law that mandated broadband providers to work with the music and film industries, in order to enforce copyright on the Internet. The law was unworkable and never implemented: a lesson that should be taken on board by all tech policy-makers.

If you are interested in the Digital Economy Act and copyright enforcement policy, it is also written up in my books. If you are a student looking for a citation, you should reference them. They are in many university libraries: A Copyright Masquerade: How Corporate Lobbying Threatens Online Freedoms and The Copyright Enforcement Enigma

You may also like my book The Closing of the Net  which positions the issues in the wider policy context. 

 

you may like my  books  A Copyright Masquerade: How Corporate Lobbying Threatens Online Freedoms   and   The Copyright Enforcement Enigma  Internet Politics and the 'Telecoms Package'

UK 3-strikes Code released: ISPs hit hard

Monica Horten
Catetory: Digital Britain
Published: 28 May 2010

In what looks to be an attempt to bury the bad news, Ofcom, the UK regulator has today released its draft 'Code' for the first part of the UK's 3-strikes/graduated response measures under the mis-named Digital Economy Act. Contrary to Ofcom's PR spin, the Code will hit small  ISPs in the medium-to-long term and will make it impossible to operate public wi-fi without censoring what users can access.

The Ofcom 3-strikes Code  precedes the 'technical measures'  to cut off or throttle Internet users,  which are intended under the Act to follow in 12 months.

 

 The  Ofcom Initial Obligations Code under the Digital Economy Act, vindicates  some of the predictions that have been floated in the past two-three weeks (see previous articles on iptegrity.com). It is a 3-strikes measure, where Internet users accused of copyright infringement by rights-holders will receive three warnings, with the threat that if they 'persist' they will be put on a blacklist and their name and contact details may be passed to the rights-holders for court action.

Whilst Ofcom is trying to soften the blow by saying that small ISPs will be excluded, this is  a distortion of the truth. 

The Code establishes that the 7 largest ISPs will be expected to comply with the Code at first, but that Ofcom will monitor file-sharing traffic and will require other ISPs to comply over time. The important clauses are 3.17 and

About Iptegrity

Iptegrity.com is the website of Dr Monica Horten, independent policy advisor: online safety, technology and human rights. Advocating to protect the rights of the majority of law abiding citizens online. Independent expert on the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on online safety and empowerment of content creators and users.  Published author, and post-doctoral scholar, with a PhD from the University of Westminster, and a DipM from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.  Former telecoms journalist,  experienced panelist and Chair, cited in the media eg  BBC, iNews, Times, Guardian and Politico.

Politics & copyright

A Copyright Masquerade: How Corporate Lobbying Threatens Online Freedoms

'timely and provocative' Entertainment Law Review