Digital Economy Act

I was invited to give a talk on the Digital Economy Act 2010 to JANET's South-East Regional User Group earlier this week. For a bit of variety I based this one around the history of the Act. Existing civil legal mechanisms didn't provide an effective way to deal with a very large number of copyright infringements, each of which was well below the level that would have made it a crime.

I've been having a look at what the first stage of the Digital Economy Act 2010 will require of qualifying ISPs and comparing it with what JANET already requires of the universities and colleges that connect to the network. And I can't see that the Act would add anything to our existing measures against copyright infringement, confirming a statement by a Government Minister a couple of months ago.

I was invited to present to the UK Network Operators' Forum today on the implications of the Digital Economy Act for Network Operators. I'd been warned that it was a highly technical audience, so I was pleasantly surprised how many people were already aware of the legislation.

Another useful meeting with ISPs and rights-holders at Ofcom yesterday, concentrating on the definitions in section 16 of the Digital Economy Act 2010; in particular how those can be used to achieve the objectives of the Act without forcing organisations and networks into inappropriate categories. The emphasis throughout was on addressing major sources of copyright infringement while recognising that those may move between providers and even between types of access.