Press Gazette: UK government to cut 30-year rule on records

Official documents, apart from ‘sensitive information’, Royal Family and Cabinet papers, could be released after 20 years instead of 30 under new government proposals, Gordon Brown announced yesterday.

The government is also looking at extending the remit of the Freedom of Information (FoI) act to cover organisations that spend public money.

The measures will aim to improve the transparency of the UK parliament following the expenses scandal.

The official publication of the MPs expenses data by parliament will happen in the next few days, Brown added.

Full story at this link…

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Media Release: UK government launches local media inquiry

The UK’s Culture, Media and Sport Commons Select Committee has launched an inquiry into the future of regional and local media.

Full release at this link…

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CMS2009: @DigitalBritain on Twitter but you won’t find @LordCarter

As MediaGuardian’s MediaMonkey has already noted and @journalism_live tweeted, the UK minister for communications, technology and broadcasting, Lord Carter, does not Twitter, and he has ‘no real desire’ to be on Twitter.

“I couldn’t compete,” he says – apparently in reference to the Guardian management addicted to the service (@arusbridger is also on Twitter these days, by the way).

So Lord Carter may not be, but @digitalbritain is on board, if you fancy following the UK government’s digital team.

Perhaps more controversial were Lord Carter’s comments about the importance of UK media, which didn’t make the next session’s panel host, Janneke Niessen, (the Dutch) co-founder of Improve Digital, too happy.

UK content is very different from that of other countries, Carter had said. “English media spreads,” Carter said.

He said that UK media output spreads more widely and crosses boundaries in different ways from the content of other countries – for example, from the Netherlands and Italy.

That’s a result of the widespread and global use of the English language, he was quick to add, sensing the sharp sucking in of breath around the room.

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PhotoAttorney: UK rejects copyright law amendments as result of UGC / mash-ups

Following up on Out-Law.com’s reports, PhotoAttorney.com looks at the UK government’s decision not to revise its copyright law ‘after reviewing research results in a consultation paper (…) published by the European Commission (EC) on copyright reform’.

“In sum, the EC paper considered the possibility of creating new use exemptions to address the increased creation of ‘user-created content’ (UGC), also known as ‘mashups’, made easier by technological innovations.”

Full post at this link…

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Media Release: Office of Fair Trading seeks input on local media mergers

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is seeking initial views on local and regional media mergers as part of a review following the UK government’s Digital Britain report.

Full release at this link…

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Press Gazette: UK government to assess time limits for online libel

The UK government will re-examine a 160-year-old legal precedent that means there is not time limit for individuals wanting to sue publishers for online libel, Justice Secretary Jack Straw said yesterday.

Full story at this link…

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Digital Britain – a round-up in 10 bullet points

Today’s the UK government’s ‘Digital Britain’ interim report provided quite a lot to digest, so here’s a ten point link round-up of the most important parts:

• A BBC News video of the Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham, outlining the report.

• Download the report here.

• Lord Carter called for broadband in every UK house by 2012, probably at a speed of 2Mb/second (Guardian.co.uk)

• Here’s the Guardian report on the subsequent opposition, and the Telegraph’s, broken down by topic.

• Guardian.co.uk’s Emily Bell looks at the significance of the report’s ‘interim’ nature. She examines how ‘we are caught between two worlds’.

• The Telegraph talks to Lord Carter about Channel 4 funding: “if there is left over cash from television switchover, it could be put to numerous uses, not just to fund the broadcaster [Channel 4],” the paper reported.

• Brand Republic on the possibility of a Channel 4 / BBC Worldwide tie-up.

• ZDNet gives a chattier breakdown here. And the title of the TechRadar post lures you in: ‘The Good, the Bad, and the WTF?’
  

• It’s hard to resist a good old Wordle (we’re as guilty as everyone else) and here is the Guardian’s depiction of the report, along with an explanation of how Lord Carter vows to force ISPs to crack down on piracy.

• Helpfully, the Guardian (by far the most comprehensive and easy-to-navigate news coverage of the afternoon) brings all its Digital Britain content together here.

and an eleventh:

• The BBC Trust’s reaction, which says the body welcomes the report and its proposals.

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Good news for media journalists – clearer Ofcom reports

Campbell Cowie, director of policy development for Ofcom, admitted today that even he doesn’t always understand Ofcom policy documents and joked that a limit to the number of acronyms allowed should be introduced.

Speaking at the Westminster Media Forum event on the UK government’s ‘Digital Britain’ plans:

“We need to think about the way we write our reports. We need to understand that we are writing for a much broader audience when we are consulting and writing about policy.

“When we bring people from the value chain together the kind of conversations you have are very different. I think we need to be very conscious of that when we are developing policy.”

Almost there Campbell – if you hadn’t used the phrase ‘value chain’ we’d have given you extra marks. Good news for those journalists lumbered with reading report after Ofcom policy report.

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BBC News: Women’s Institute to report sex ads in local newspapers

Harriet Harman, the UK government’s minister for women, will ask the organisation to seek out ‘sleazy adverts’ and complain to editors of the papers carrying them.

Harman is concerned in particular with adverts, which are part of wider trafficking of women.

What about the unregulated ads and websites online?

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NMA: UK government signs up for new media lessons

Departments, including Culture, Media & Sport, are to receive digital media training, including sessions on user-generated content, social networking and search.

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