Ofcom to Hold the Whip on Online Copyright Violation
The recently published Digital Britain implementation plan spells out the view of the government on various aspects of the plan’s execution, that were put forward in the first draft of the same report. The details include the ways of governing, legislating and finally executing the action plan.
The 27- page implementation plan also makes some obvious suggestions on improving the broadband infrastructure of the country. The plan goes on to put forth measures regarding the P2P filesharing situation.
The most noteworthy part of the plan is the government’s decision to hand Ofcom the authority to tackle issues of illegal filesharing. Ofcom would now be empowered to impose regulations on internet service providers to prevent and even stop the online infringement of copyright laws by using available technology in this field.
However, the plan does not provide any details as to how the Government and Ofcom intend to enforce this. Ofcom has been given 12 months to try and prevent the illegal filesharing menace, after which it would be free to use its ‘backstop powers’ to achieve its objective. The reach and effect of these ‘backstop powers’ has remained mysterious so far, as the Government has not bothered to define the term in spite of repeated requests.
The report is true to its character of being a government plan with incomprehensible and useless jargon. Nevertheless, it points out the responsibilities to be assigned to various people for getting things in order.
The plan manages to compartmentalise the entire task into smaller bits to make the implementation process smooth, but it is still devoid of comprehensive details.

