By: MarkJ - 21 October, 2011 (8:09 AM) - Score: 2775 - Fixed Line Broadband, Piracy, Ofcom Regulation

The communications regulator, Ofcom UK, informed a Westminster e-Forum event yesterday that its work to complete the still unfinished Code of Practice for tackling internet copyright infringement (piracy) by customers of UK broadband providers, a requirement of the controversial Digital Economy Act (DEA), was proving to be "particularly challenging".

Several reports of the event (here, here and here) noted from Ofcom that a number of key issues still need to be resolved. Problems surround everything from the definition of an ISP and subscriber to which ISPs will be subject to the code. In particular Ofcom pointed to the difficulty in ensuring a good standard of evidence.

For example, an IP address (one is assigned to all of us when we go online) doesn't necessarily identify the guilty party when tracked from public P2P (BitTorrent) file sharing networks. At best it can only identify the owner of an often shared connection (public Wi-Fi, business, hotel etc.) and sometimes it can't even get that right (hacking, hijacking, out of sync ISP logs etc.).


Meanwhile Rights Holders took the opportunity to criticise both BT and TalkTalk for their continued efforts to delay the DEAct through a shaky Judicial Review process, which was recently put back on the table after a successful appeal (here).

At this point Richard Mollet, CEO of the Publishers Association (Rights Holder), weighed in to praise BSkyB ( Sky Broadband ) and Virgin Media for not obstructing the DEA, helping to develop legal alternatives and "looking at ways in which we can develop voluntary solutions on things like site blocking".

For consumers the most important aspect remains whether or not you will end up being "suspended" (disconnected) from your ISP because of something that somebody else has done on your network / IP and if any legitimate websites will end up being blocked. This issue extends well beyond the home and into businesses, libraries and cafe's etc.

Until Ofcom releases its final code then we won't know for sure how any of these aspects will be handled. As always, the devil is in the detail, and we're still waiting.