Digital Britain report: a summary

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So, the Government has just released its Digital Britain green paper. It discusses a number of
different things that the government wants to do for the future of Britain’s digital industry, ranging from telecoms, through radio, television, broadband and, as we discussed this morning, intellectual property.

It’s an interesting read. There’s some positive aspects, and some negative ones. Some bits of the report are very ambitious, but others show no ambition at all. I’ll go through each sector in order over the break.

UK Government to tax every British broadband connection £20 for copyright enforcement

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A £20 charge could be levied on every broadband connection in Britain, to pay for an agency that will provide data about serial copyright-breakers to music and film companies, if plans due to be announced today by the Government in its ‘Digital Britain’ green paper come to fruition.

Today, Lord Carter of Barnes will propose the creation of a quango which will be paid for by a levy on ISPs, who’ll almost certainly pass the cost on to their subscribers. Also in the white paper is a proposition that every house has a right to 2Mb/s broadband.