Big tech accountability? Read how we got here in  The Closing of the Net 

Britain

Digital Britain

Britain was traditionally  influential in European policy for telecoms policy. It was a  British Commissioner, Lord Cockfield,  who established the Single European Market.  Britain led the way in the establishment of a competitive European  telecoms market.  However, in leaving the EU, Britain has  lost the ability to influence  European policy in the future, and in 2022, Britain sadly finds itself no longer a major power, but instead has become an embarrassment for  British representatives in international fora.  The government is sunk deep in corruption,  it blatantly lies, its law-breaking has led to mistrust among former allies.  There are multiple posts, articles, and tweets to support this claim. 

It's in this context that the British government is preparing a law to address regulation of the Internet. It's a law that will have far-reaching implications  for the way the Internet will function in Britain, and will impact on web platforms overseas. I am referring of course, to the Online Safety Bill. As I write this, at the beginning of 2022, the Bill is only in draft form. How will it end up? Interestingly, in going through my old posts, I note that wrote in 2015 about a similarly -named Bill. It was the predecessor to this one. It never became law, but many of the provisions in it appear to have been taken forward into the 2022 version. 

A number of the articles in this section discuss a previous policy, called   the Digital Economy Act 2010.  This was a law that mandated broadband providers to work with the music and film industries, in order to enforce copyright on the Internet. It was forced through in the dying hours of the Parliament before the General Election of  May 2010.  The measures  involved the use of network technology to sanction  users, with  implications for the neutrality of the network, and the  ‘mere conduit’ status of the network provider. The law was deemed unworkable and never implemented. That is a lesson that needs to be taken on board by all policy-makers in this field.

If you like the articles in this section, you may like my book The Closing of the Net.

If you are interested in the Digital Economy Act and copyright enforcement policy, you may like my previous books A Copyright Masquerade: How Corporate Lobbying Threatens Online Freedoms and The Copyright Enforcement Enigma - Internet Politics and the ‘Telecoms Package’

Rights-holders heavy UK copyright inquiry

Monica Horten
Published on 09 March 2011
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The Hargreaves review of  intellectual property  law gave hope to those from the digital world that the UKgovernment was prepared to consider some new thinking over the tricky aspects of digital copyright.  But the review team have been subjected to heavy rights-holder lobbying. 

 

The deadline for submissions to the UK's Copyright Review ended last week on Friday. The aim of the inquiry was to investigate how intellectual property (IP)  law should be changed to support new and innovative, hi-tech businesses.  Now, as they plough through the submissions, many people will be hoping that Ian Hargreaves and his team  at the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) are brave enough to come up with some truly innovative answers to the copyright dilemna.

 

The rights-holders have evidently not left it to chance. The IPO has put online a list of

Read more: Rights-holders heavy UK copyright inquiry

Ofcom's DE Act £5 million-a-year - for exactly what, Mr Vaizey?

Monica Horten
Published on 26 February 2011
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£5 million a year for Ofcom's DE Act responsibilities - but Mr Vaizey was a little hazy about what it will pay for.  He referred to monitoring activities. Ofcom's own  slides reveal an expensive programme of p2p monitoring.

 

The Communications Minister Ed Vaizey confirmed to Parliament that the  budget for the telecoms regulator Ofcom,  in respect of the Digital Economy Act (DE Act),  is £5 million a year. That comes on top of £5.8 million for setting up its DE Act operations.  The figure in itself is not new, as it was reported last year in a government document. However, Mr Vaizey added a statement on what the £5 million will cover. He said the £5 million a year is to cover Ofcom's "responsibilities" under the DE Act, which include :

"monitoring and enforcement

Read more: Ofcom's DE Act £5 million-a-year - for exactly what, Mr Vaizey?

DE Act: is Jeremy Hunt extending it by the back-door?

Monica Horten
Published on 02 February 2011
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The Department of Culture, Media and Sport is reviewing the DE Act's web blocking clauses. But  the review does not seem to be  limited to the text of the law, and raises new policy issues which are not in the text that was passed by Parliament.

 

UK Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has ordered the telecoms regulator, Ofcom, to  review of the web blocking clauses in the Digital Economy Act. These clauses -  - 17 and 18 -  rely on secondary legislation to come into effect, and would give British courts the power to order the blocking of websites on application by rights-holders.

 

Mr Hunt  is claiming to be conducting the review in response to citizen opposition expressed on a government webiste - entitled  Your Freedom  - which sought to understand laws which people wanted repealed. On that basis, he has enlisted the support of the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg.

 

 However, the tone of the review announced by Mr Hunt yesterday, is quite the opposite. The aim of the review is not to understand the democratic

Read more: DE Act: is Jeremy Hunt extending it by the back-door?

More Articles...

  1. DE Act: should Parliament pass flawed ISP costs order?
  2. DE Act: Will Parliament approve or reject copyright expenses?
  3. BPI (British IFPI) call to block the 'Net
  4. DE Act: Minister hosts industry talks on web blocking
  5. Google pressures UK into copyright review
  6. Rights-holder tactics exposed in ACS Law leak
  7. DE Act unjustified - Internet industry hits out at Ofcom
  8. DE Act: AT&T wants to wriggle out of copyright liability
  9. DE Act: users and ISPs hit by Ofcom Code
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Iptegrity.com is the website of Dr Monica Horten. I’ve been analysing analysing digital policy since 2008. Way back then, I identified how issues around rights can influence Internet policy, and that has been a thread throughout all of my research. I hold a PhD in EU Communications Policy from the University of Westminster (2010), and a Post-graduate diploma in marketing.   I’ve served as an independent expert on the Council of Europe  Committee on Internet Freedoms, and was involved in a capacity building project in Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine. I am currently (from June 2022)  Policy Manager - Freedom of Expression, with the Open Rights Group. For more, see About Iptegrity

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Copyright Enforcement Enigma launch, March 2012

In 2012, I presented my PhD research in the European Parliament.

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