Digital Economy Act: How is the industry dealing with implementation?

Ongoing issues around the implementation of the controversial Digital Economy Act (DEA), passed in June 2010, were discussed at a Westminster e-forum keynote seminar yesterday.

The DEA was created to prevent infringement of copyrighted material such as film and music from being shared on popular peer-to-peer file-sharing websites.

Customer costs
The cost of the implementation to ISPs and subscribers has been an ongoing concern since the passing of the act.

Although ISPs such as BT and TalkTalk will not be forced to pay any part in setting up, monitoring or enforcing the mass notification system, they will have to match data about downloaders against their own customer databases, meaning they will, in effect, pay a share of the operating costs.

Andrew Heaney, executive director of strategy and regulation at TalkTalk, reiterated his belief that this will ultimately affect customers as the cost of using the internet may escalate.

"Is it right for subscribers to pay extra to protect the copyright of private companies?" he asked.

Where does the responsibility lie?
Another ongoing issue addressed at the seminar was how best to identify the people who are downloading content illegally – one of the main difficulties being that multiple users may access the same IP address, particularly common when accessing a Wi-Fi connection.

"I'm worried about Wi-Fi mainly because of smaller businesses outside London that use Wi-Fi in a public domain," said Dominique Laza, head of digital policy at the Taxpayer's Alliance.

Wi-Fi makes it harder to track down which user is responsible for infringing copyright and raises the question as to whether there will be sufficient evidence to blame one individual.

One way of tackling the issue is to make sure members of the public log on every time they want to access the internet to ensure they are identifiable.

However, this could be a problem, even in private use, as Okke Delfos Visser, deputy general counsel EMEA at Motion Picture Association, suggests.

"A parent who logs on for a child, who then downloads illegal content, may be liable," he said.

He noted that in Germany, the owner of Wi-Fi, such as a coffee shop owner, is liable for any infringement made by customers using owner's Wi-Fi.

However, he didn't think this concern should prevent the government from enforcing the act.

Migrating to legal websites
Even if a website is blocked or taken down, convincing customers to migrate to legal websites may remain an issue.

But if successfully addressed film and music makers would certainly benefit from legitimate sales and see a reduction in illegal downloads.

Saskia Walzel, senior policy advocate for Consumer Focus, believes that one tactic would be to insert links on an illegal website due to be taken down to ensure that customers are aware that legal sites can offer the same service as illegal file-sharing websites.

However, several delegates at the forum said there were not enough legal public services to allow people to migrate.

Although music services such as Amazon and iTunes are available, UK licensing for US service Netflix, the legal television show and film-streaming site, still has not been granted and no UK website offers a legal alternative.