In a speech to the Royal Television Society, UK Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has suggested that the British government may “look at legislative solutions” to crack down on infringing content online. His specific suggestions: “A cross-industry body, perhaps modeled on the Internet Watch Foundation, to be charged with identifying infringing websites against which action could be taken; A streamlined legal process to make it possible for the courts to act quickly; A responsibility on search engines and ISPs to take reasonable steps to make it harder to access sites that a court has deemed contain unlawful content or promote unlawful distribution of content; A responsibility on advertisers to take reasonable steps to remove their advertisements from these sites; And finally a responsibility on credit card companies and banks to remove their services from these sites.”
Previously, Secretary Hunt has promised to issue and seek comments on a Communications Green Paper by the end of the year. The Green Paper will be used to inform a new Communications Bill. In his speech last week, he indicated that the Green Paper is not complete, as the department is still considering input from input received from stakeholders.
ISP and advertising industry representatives who responded to requests for comment from the BNA’s World Intellectual Property Report that they were skeptical. For instance, a spokesperson from Google noted that it already works with content owners to take down infringing content, adding “We recently announced a series of measures that make this process even easier, bringing our removal time down to an average of four hours.”
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