Is an Act of the Parliament of United Kingdom regulating digital media. Introduced by Peter Mandelson, Lord Mandelson, it received Royal assent on 8 April 2010, and came into force on 8 June 2010.The Act's provisions against the act of copyright enfrigment proved controversial
BBC: What is the Digital Economy Bill?
It is a broad suite of legislation aimed at bringing Britain into the digital age. It follows proposals about digital media set out in the Digital Britain White Paper published by the government in June 2009.
There are various aspects of the bill, which cover everything from local television provision and video game ratings to the powers of regulator Ofcom and how internet domain names are registered in the UK.
What happens now?
The bill will touch on many areas of our digital lives. However, the aspect that has received the most attention is measures designed to curb illegal file-sharing.
This is basically a long set of instructions to Ofcom to draw up guidelines for rights holders and ISPs on how they deal with net piracy.
What does this mean for me?
In theory, if you do not upload or download copyrighted content, these plans should not affect you. If you do, the government and creative industries hope that these measures will eventually encourage you to use legal services.
So, is cutting people off from the net the only controversial aspect of the bill?
No. There are also concerns about how the file-sharing measures could affect public wi-fi services. Specifically, people are concerned that the owner of a connection could be held liable even if they are not personally responsible for downloading pirated material.
So, for instance, if someone used wireless connectivity in a cafe to download free content, the cafe owner would be held responsible. Universities and libraries are also concerned about this aspect.
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