< Back to reports

On the brink: UK anti-piracy regime

20 July 2010
Access report

By 29th September, all submissions on the government’s anti-piracy proposals will need to be in to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), with furious lobbying taking place in the lead up to the tabling of the draft Digital Economy bill in November

Under the proposals, content owners are to identify IP addresses of file-sharers and communicate them to their ISPs, which would be required to write letters to the account holders, and also release this information to content owners in the event of continued file-sharing activity to allow legal proceedings to be initiated

Opportunities for retreat abound, but if the proposals become law (rather than shelved for the next government), the UK’s new online piracy regime will generate economic benefits for the content owners (and the creative industries), which will share costs with the ISPs under the government’s latest proposal

Recent reports

Privacy delayed: Google shelves plans to deprecate Chrome cookies

25 July 2024

Google has permanently shelved the 2025 deadline for removing all third-party cookies from Chrome, but publishers should prepare for much higher rates of users blocking cookies. 

The online economy is still moving towards more privacy and user controls on the major platforms, with Android the next target for the Privacy Sandbox. 

Regulators are increasingly setting the terms online, limiting Google's freedom of movement, and with the conflict between competition and user privacy protections defining the next phase of the internet.

Access report

OpenAI: Still leading the AI race?

23 July 2024

The next generation of the largest and most powerful 'frontier' AI models will be a key test for the pace of AI progress, with OpenAI's upcoming GPT-5 the most highly anticipated.

For OpenAI, the stakes are high, facing a growing assortment of rivals and with huge spend on training and running models to recoup. Staying at the cutting edge is key to justifying itself to the big tech backers on which it depends.

If OpenAI can deliver technology that matches its ambitious vision for what AI can be, it will be transformative for its own prospects, but also the economy more broadly. Falling short could be fatal.

Access report

DAZN in preliminary deal for fourth major market: Ligue 1 rights value drops 14%

22 July 2024

After an arduous ten-month process, France’s Ligue 1 has reached a tentative deal to license its 2024-29 broadcasting rights at a price 14% down on the previous cycle.

Adding France (for €400 million p.a.), DAZN now has prominent positions in four out of the five big European markets. With a weekly top pick (for €100m p.a.), beIN consolidates its model.

Attention turns to distribution, and whether DAZN will patch up its partnership with Canal+.

Access report