Digital economy bill promises action on piracy, games and ITV regional news | Media | guardian.co.uk

A clampdown on unlawful online file-sharing, a push for the switchover to digital radio in 2015, tougher laws to stop children getting hold of violent video games and power for Ofcom over the provision of regional news on ITV are the highlights of a rather anaemic digital economy bill, to be published on Friday.

The bill, announced in the Queen's Speech today outlining this Labour government's final legislative programme, will also include a simplification of the UK's complex copyright laws, making it easier for people to use images on the internet without having to get permission.

"My government will introduce a bill to ensure communications infrastructure that is fit for the digital age, supports future economic growth, delivers competitive communications and enhances public service broadcasting," the Queen said in her speech.

The digital economy bill is due to be announced in parliament tomorrow, with full details published on Friday.

Some of the flagship Digital Britain initiatives are not in the bill because they require new tax measures to be introduced.

Plans for a £6-a-year tax on all phone lines to raise cash for the next generation of superfast broadband networks, which was the big surprise in June's final report, will be included in the pre-Budget report on 9 December.

The Treasury secretary, Stephen Timms, who took over responsibility for implementing Digital Britain from the former communications minister, Lord Carter, in the summer, has pledged that the next generation of superfast broadband networks, which will allow people to download movies in minutes and music in seconds, will be within the reach of 90% of UK households by 2017.

Meeting the government's ambition that everyone in the UK will have access to a basic broadband service with a speed of at least 2Mbps by 2012, which was the centrepiece of Lord Carter's interim report in January, does not require legislation.

Next month's pre-Budget report may also include a "cultural" tax break for the video games industry, which is struggling to compete with the financial incentives offered by rival countries such as Canada.

The UK could lose its place as home to the world's third largest video games industry this year, falling to fifth place before dropping into sixth in 2010, according to recent research by the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (Nesta), because of the favourable tax regimes being offered by other countries. Negotiations are still ongoing between the Treasury and the video games industry, which contributes more than £1bn to the country's annual GDP.

As a result, the most headline-grabbing part of the digital economy bill will be a clampdown on online piracy. Last month, Peter Mandelson set out the government's plans for a scheme which would see persistent online sharers of copyrighted material sent a series of warning letters before having their broadband connections slowed down or even suspended.

Music companies welcomed Mandelson's move, which goes further than the measures suggested by Carter in June's Digital Britain report, but internet service providers have warned that the cost of implementing the measures will outweigh the benefits.

There are also fears that innocent internet users could have their wireless broadband networks hijacked by pirates and fall victim to the tough new regime. One of the UK's largest internet service providers, TalkTalk, has already warned that it will launch legal action if the plan is put into action.

Many of the other measures in the digital economy bill, however, are less far-reaching. There are to be changes to the regulatory framework for the radio industry to make it easier to push for digital radio switchover in 2015, while the remit of Channel 4 will also be updated so that it includes the provision of public service content on all media platforms, including the web

The remit of Channel 4 will also be updated so that it includes the provision of public service content on all media platforms, including the web.

Communications regulator Ofcom will be given new powers so that it can appoint and fund new independent ITV regional news providers. The Digital Britain report called for the creation of independently funded news consortiums, which would plug the gap in regional news provision left by ITV's proposed withdrawal from regional news production.

Digital Britain said the £130m a year of BBC licence fee money currently used to pay for the most vulnerable to switch to digital TV should be used to fund ITV regional news programming. The digital economy bill, however, will leave unanswered the question of exactly how the consortiums will be funded.

Earlier this week the Department for Culture, Media and Sport reiterated that it wants to trial regional news consortiums in 2010, with three pilots – in Scotland, Wales and one English region – funded from the money left over from the digital switchover licence fee fund.

But in response to a lengthy consultation on the issue, the department added that "the government's preference remains the contained contestable element but a final decision will be made before the licence fee settlement process in 2012".

As a result, even though the digital economy bill will give Ofcom the power to establish the regional news consortiums, exactly where the funds will come from to pay for them will be up to the next government. If the Conservative party wins next year's general election, it has already pledged to scrap the plan for ITV regional news provision.

Finally, the digital economy bill will change the way that video games are given age classifications, making age ratings compulsory for all boxed games designed for those aged 12 or above. The Digital Britain report in June called for rules to be introduced that would make it illegal to sell a video game rated 12 or over to an underage buyer, and take away the classification of games from the British Board of Film Classification.

The report included plans to introduce the PEGI or Pan-European Game Information system, already used in many EU states, as the sole method of classifying video games. It would replace the current hybrid system – which results in games with both a BBFC and PEGI stamp – under which the BBFC only had to classify games that depicted "gross violence or sexual content" while all other games were classified on a voluntary basis.

Instead, the report called for the Video Standards Council to take over age rating with all games having to be classified. Any developer making a false declaration about a game's content would face a fine of €500,000 (£425,000). The VSC will be able to ban games it believes are inappropriate for the UK market.

The current PEGI ratings are 3, 7, 12, 16 and 18. The 12 rating, for instance, allows violence of a slightly more graphic nature than would be found in, say, Tom and Jerry cartoons, but only towards fantasy characters. They can also include non-graphic violence towards human-looking characters or recognisable animals. The 12 rating also covers video games that show nudity of a slightly graphic nature but any bad language in this category must be mild and fall short of sexual expletives.

The digital economy bill is the culmination of the Digital Britain process begun by Carter in October last year.

Carter's ambition was to give the UK's creative industries – which he nicknamed "the poets" – both protection and support in the digital age, while also fostering investment in the next generation of digital infrastructure – which he nicknamed "the pipes".

However, while his final Digital Britain report in June was shot through with a grand ambition to create a new digital economy to would help lift the UK out of recession , the digital economy bill is more plumbing than poetry, in many places little more than a series of disconnected tweaks to existing legislation.

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