Oh, dear…

Oh. My. God. Over in the UK, they’re in the process of passing the Digital Economy Bill, which three seconds of research suggests is analogous to the DMCA here in the U.S. Better people than I have already written extensively about why it’s Truly Evil, but this is pretty funny. “Copyright owners are currently able to go on-line, look for material to which they hold the copyright and identify unauthorised sources for that material. They can then seek to download a copy of that material and in so doing capture information about the source including the Intellectual Property (IP) address…” Pretty sure “IP” stands for “Internet Protocol,” but what are you gonna do?

Now, my experience with the British political system includes several episodes of “Yes Minister” and the movie “In the Loop,” so I don’t know where the MPs go for their computer training. (Do you guys in the UK have the Video Professor?) But come on, confusing “Intellectual Property” with “Internet Protocol” just reeks of, “I have no idea what I’m doing, I’m just writing what the lobbyist tells me to write.”

I should probably explain that quoted sentence. It’s a letter written by one Stephen Timms, the Minister for Digital Britain, sent to some other Member of Parliament, MP in the parlance of Whitehall. Timms is basically saying, “We must pass the Digital Economy Bill, for the sake of the Mankind.”

UK readers are encouraged to whinge about the bill in the comments.

Might as well get this over with now. The FCC has announced its National Broadband Plan, which describes where the agency would like to see the U.S. in a few years’ time vis-à-vis broadband and connectedness. It’s sorta like the UK’s Digital Britain report, published last year. The big thing is this: it’s in America’s best interest to turn itself into a first-world nation again, and the best way to do that is to develop its Internet infrastructure a wee bit more. That’s the gist of it: better, faster Internet access for many more people.

The FCC’s goal is to have, by 2020, 100 million homes (out of a projected 130 million) wired with 100 mbps broadband. The agency has said that broadband represents the country’s “greatest infrastructure challenge.” It’s not bridges and subway tunnels anymore—though we could sure use those, too—it’s about making sure you’re able to use the Internet easily and effectively. The idea is to make the Internet the country’s primary means of communication.

The executive summary, a quick synopsis of the otherwise gigantic report, says that broadband “is a foundation for economic growth, job creation, global competitiveness and a better way of life. It is changing how we educate children, deliver healthcare, manage energy, ensure public safety, engage government, and access, organise and disseminate knowledge.” All true. Think of your typical day: how many times do you use the Internet? (And think of those days when, for whatever reason, your Internet connection is down—freak out!) You wake up and you read the news; you check your bank account to make sure you’re not being charged weird fees for no reason; you look to see if your kid’s school is closed because of the snow; you check the weather; you read your work and personal e-mail; you check your Facebook and wish your brother-in-law a happy birthday (even if you don’t mean it); you tweet to the world that “today feels like a good day, gonna be productive”; you download the new Jimi Hendrix album from iTunes and stick it on your iPhone; and you order a Michio Kaku book from Amazon.

It’s broadband, it’s the Internet! It’s the future!

Now, it’s one thing for the FCC to say, “This is what we’d like to see,” but it’s another thing for that to actually happen. The U.S. doesn’t have the best Internet infrastructure out there—yes, we’re not the best at something, don’t cry—and that could be for a number of reasons. One, the U.S. is pretty big. The best wired countries—the Netherlands, South Korea, Norway, places like that—aren’t very large to begin with, and they’re more urban. That is, the majority of the population lives in cities, unlike here in the U.S. where suburbs and exurbs dominate. There’s a reason why, having lived in and around New York my entire life, I go to other places in the country and think, “Man, this is what the rest of America looks like? This is weird.” Not bad, just different. New York might as well be Jupiter compared to Texas. Anyhow, cities are far easier to wire for broadband than Kansas. It’s often not worth the local Internet Service Provider’s time (and money!) to wire you and your neighbor’s house on Smith Street.

But that’s why we need to think of broadband as infrastructure and not some silly little thing. Did we depend on private companies to construct the Inter-state Highway System? Why should broadband be any different?

Will taxes go up to pay for this? I don’t know. I do know that I’d rather see tax dollars go to an improved broadband infrastructure rather than, say, bridges to nowhere or ridiculous corn subsidies. (I just saw Food, Inc. and I’m all worked up.)

Let the record show that I already have 100 mbps broadband (well, 101 mbps!) and it’s really neat.

I, for one, would like to see the U.S. embrace broadband rather than see it fight tooth and nail against progress—big government this, big government that. That’s such a tired argument.

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The ban hammer is about to smash UK file-sharers. Legislation there is set to take effect in April that would, as a last resort, kick illegal file-sharers off the Internet. Very exciting~!

The deal is that the Government, ISPs, and intellectual property owners will work together to kindly remind you that not all forms of file-sharing are on the up and up. If they find you sharing something that you shouldn’t be, you’ll be sent a letter saying, essentially, “please stop.”

You’ll recall this was a hot-button issue during that Digital Britain debate.

That’s phase one. Authorities will check back one year later to see if the letters were effective in stopping illegal file-sharing. If it’s determined that the letters haven’t cut the piracy rate by 70 percent (man, set a high bar much?) then out comes the ban hammer.

You’ll then receive up to two “please stop” letters before you’re disconnected from your ISP.

All well and good, but wait till Brussels hears about this. Appeal, appeal, delay, appeal.

According to Paid Content, the BBC Trust is blocking plans for sharing the iPlayer. In a September 29 proposal that wasn’t made public, BBC executives said it wanted to create a company to license the VOD (Video on Demand) service to public sector companies. But the BBC Trust – the Beeb’s regualator which is supposed to look after the interests of the licence payer – is blocking the proposal. The report concluded “that the open iPlayer plans in their proposed form, combining both commercial and public service elements, were too complicated. We were not convinced that there was enough potential value to licence fee payers in the public service part of the proposal, and we have therefore rejected the BBC executive’s proposals for an open iPlayer federation. The BBC first proposed sharing the iPlayer in December 2008. In its wide-ranging Digital Britain consultation submission it proposed UK public sector broadcast partnerships which it claimed could save counterparts £120 million by 2014. Via Paid Content

Potentially bad news for you UK readers. An amendment to the big Digital Britain report would kick off “hardcore copyright pirates” from the Internet. The amendment would require ISPs to tell repeat offenders to knock it off, or else. The cost for doing this—it’s not exactly inexpensive to keep track of copyright infringement, mail out letters, etc.—will be burdened by both the ISPs and rights holders.

We all know why this is happening: rights holders there (the UK’s version of the RIAA and MPAA) are freaking out because they never bothered to update their business model, and now are seeing their business (standing in between musicians and their fans, “distributing” music) blow up. Ten years ago, all these companies should have seen the success of Napster, hired the best and brightest right out of college, and have them develop a service that would have limited the proliferation of Internet piracy. I’m thinking OiNK and What.cd: far and away better than what iTunes offers, in both selection and file quality. Now, if the record labels had introduced something like those sites in 2000, or 2001, charged a reasonable amount, they wouldn’t be in this position today.

Again, read Ripped for more on how the music industry screwed itself so, so badly.

But anyway, this UK thing. For their part, the Internet Service Providers’ Association claims to be “disappointed by the proposal to force ISPs to suspend users’ accounts.” It even referenced an earlier ruling by the European Parliament that called kicking people off the Internet a violation of people’s basic rights.

In a coup, I asked in a bunch of file sharing-related IRC rooms that I idle in all day—Linikus for Mac OS X is a great piece of software, even if the thought of paying for an IRC client is 100 percent bonkers—what UK users thought about all of this. They’re very skeptical, with one user claiming outright that “it’ll never happen.” He gets letters from Virgin (a big ISP in the UK) all the time, yet nothing ever comes from it. So if this whole campaign is there to scare people, well, it doesn’t seems to be working.

Hold onto your hats, everyone.

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BT has announced that an additional 69 towns will be receiving their super-fast fibre-based broadband by this time next year – meaning the service will be available to 1.5 million homes and businesses. BT’s Steve Robertson said: “We had aimed to get fibre to half a million homes by next March but we’re now being far more ambitious. We’ve received a tremendous response to date and so we’re keen to get on with the job.” Their overall goal of the project, which is costing the telecommunication giant £1.5billion, is to have 10 million homes covered by 2012 – 40% of the country. BT will be offering access to ISPs on an open, wholesale basis thereby supporting a competitive market. The first areas to have access to the network went live earlier this week. Trials are taking place in Muswell Hill, London and Whitchurch, South Wales and involve 16 different ISPs. The plan is great news for internet users and makes a bit of a mockery of the plan set out in the Digital Britain report to ensure that the country is covered by a broadband network capable of 2Mbps. The super-fast network being developed by BT should be capable of speeds of 40Mbps – 100Mbps. No wonder MPs are to open an inquiry into whether the 2Mbps plan is ambitious enough. Clearly it isn’t. (via BT & Computing.co.uk)