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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'

"Quasi-judicial" 3-strikes could sneak in under cover of elections

Monica Horten
Catetory: Digital Britain
Published: 10 May 2010

Britain could get a "quasi-judicial" system of automated justice under new proposals being rushed into place by the telecommunications regulator, Ofcom. The implementation of the Digital Economy Act is happening in meetings taking place behind closed doors with no transparency.

The aim is to get the first stage of a draconian copyright regime in place by the end of the summer. The proposals which have filtered out of the meetings appear to be non-compliant with the EU Telecoms Package final agreement.

After the Digital Economy Act was rammed through the Parliament under a guillotine which surely must make its legitimacy questionable, Ofcom is doing a cloak-and-dagger exercise to make the Act a reality before the public can realise what it has done.

From what can be ascertained, Ofcom intends to get a system in place for the warnings-element of a 3-strikes system in place by August. This is two-three months shorter than even the time-frame in the Act. In order to achieve this timeframe, Ofcom is calling meetings with the two industries concerned - entertainment /music; and Internet/telecoms; - in spite of the election and the political uncertainty in the UK at the moment.

The first meeting was on 28 April - not even a month after the Act achieved Royal Assent and officially became law - and the second meeting was on 6 May - the same day as the UK election.

The meeting agendas are to discuss

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