Businesses need to comply with Digital Economy Act

A recent report has highlighted the fact that businesses also need to comply with laws relating to illegal downloading as outlined in the Digital Economy Act, and should therefore ensure that they have adequate security in place.

The Digital Economy Act has caused a lot of controversy both before and after it was passed into law, and amongst the most controversial areas of the act were those relating to copyright protection and illegal file sharing. Now that the act has been passed into law Internet Service Providers are being forced to take action against those that are suspected of illegal downloading and copyright infringement online.

However, whilst most people are aware that consumers that have broadband are affected by the regulations many may forget that it also applies to businesses in the UK as well. A recent report has highlighted the fact that businesses also need to comply with the laws in the Digital Economy Act, and with this in mind should ensure that they have adequate security in place to stop employees or users from taking part in illegal downloading, which would then affect the company, which would be held responsible.

Stephen Clark, who is a Solicitor and member of the Intellectual Property group at law firm MBM Commercial LLP, said: “Organisations may have assumed that the Act only applies to residential customers; however the Act applies to any broadband subscriber including businesses, schools, colleges and universities. Organisations who, knowingly or otherwise, allow their IT resources to be used to download copyright material could face the same penalties as a residential customer, including degradation of service, bandwidth limitation or account suspension.”

Another official said: “Organisations need to ensure that they put in place adequate systems to prevent their users from accessing sites that host copyrighted material and to block file sharing applications. However, ensuring that they have a robust Acceptable Use Policy that clearly identifies the risk and consequences for users who download copyright material is equally important.”

Source – Security Park