Commercial & IP update - August 2010

Contents

• The Digital Economy Act 2010
• New advertising codes
• Competition law update

The Digital Economy Act 2010
By Linda Burke

As a response to growing concern over copyright infringement, Parliament passed the Digital Economy Act 2010 in April this year. The Act is broadly divided into two sections.

The first section of the Act gives copyright owners the right to make a copyright infringement report to an internet service provider (ISP) if they suspect that a website hosted by the ISP infringes their copyright.

The ISP is obliged to:

1) inform the website subscriber of the report;

2) maintain a register of all reports; and

3) provide a copyright infringement list containing anonymous details of subscribers that have