Digital Economy Act "won't be repealed" by new government

The freshly elected, sparkly new government has dashed the hopes of those campaigning for the repeal of the Digital Economy Act. Jeremy Hunt, the new Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, said, "We're not going to repeal it," in an interview with paidContent:UK.

With the Olympics, a World Cup bid and, er, the entirety of British culture in his ministerial portfolio, Mr Hunt has decided to see how the measures described in the act work and amend them in the future if necessary.

This means copyright holders will be able to force ISPs to send letters to people they allege have illegally downloaded their material. This will work on a three-strikes basis, with one letter informing you of your naughty business and pointing out the many ways you can legally download content, the next warning you of your impending cutoff and the third shutting your connection down.

The specifics of an appeals process, or how this might affect large shared households or open Wi-Fi networks, are still to be decided by Ofcom. Proposals to block sites that host or promote copyright infringement will not go ahead, according to paidContent, because they were introduced by the previous government separate to the act.

For more on what the act means to you, read our guide to how it works, and our list of nine things you can't do any more.

Image credit: James Firth of Dalton Firth Limited, via CC.