The long-awaited Government report on Digital Britain was published this afternoon, and launched by SW Minister Ben Bradshaw. You can view the full report using the link below. I would be very interested to hear from blog readers responses to the recommendations being made, and particularly about how third sector organisations could respond to the report.
www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/broadcasting/5631.aspx/
The Report is one of the central policy commitments in the Government’s Building Britain’s Future plan and draft legislative programme.
Digital Britain measures include:
- A three-year National Plan to improve Digital Participation
- Universal Access to today’s broadband services by 2012
- Next Generation fund for investment in tomorrow’s broadband services
- Digital radio upgrade by the end of 2015
- mobile spectrum liberalisation, enhancing 3G coverage and accelerating Next Generation mobile services
- robust legal and regulatory framework to combat Digital Piracy
- support for public service content partnerships
- a revised digital remit for Channel 4
- consultation on funding options for national, regional and local news
At first glance, it misses the mark. It doesn’t do anything to unlock Digital Britain and make us a more sharing and social place. From failing to open the 3G mobile networks to the Phone Co-op and other operators completely (they describe it as already being “highly competitive” – haven’t they visited a South West “notspot”?), through the unnecessary increase in protection for Star Wars’s foreign owners, right down to the continued support for Adobe on the report download site instead of third-sector-produced pdfreaders.org, it looks like the report won’t stop us being “Digital Divide Britain”.
I also have my suspicions about the effect of the “DAB-only from the end of 2015″ decision on our community radio companies, but I’ve not been active in that sector for years and there’s a further consultation about that.
Ultimately, “the Government believes piracy of intellectual propert for profit is theft and will be pursued as such through the criminal law” is the killer phrase in this report. The concept of being allowed to file-share without payment doesn’t even appear in the same section. I’ve been warning about these “New Enclosure” attempts for years: I didn’t expect the Digital Britain report to be such a leap towards them.
I think most of these problems generally stem from the failure to include digital production cooperatives in the preparation of this report in any significant way. It has been captured by the private sector and a few trading funds, to the detriment of the nation.
By: MJ Ray on 18 June, 2009
at 4:49 pm