The Tory's culture man Jeremy Hunt, who, needless to say, found problems with pretty much every one of the government's digital proposals, latched onto the buzz word "digital dithering". That, Hunt says, is what the government is and has been doing, and the dithering is putting the British digital and creative industries at risk. We all love a bit of alliteration, of course, and the phrase 'digital dithering' was quickly picked up by other critics to Carter's big report.
Speaking for the record companies, the boss of the BPI, Geoff Taylor, said he welcomed the fact that the 'Digital Britain' report recognised the seriousness of the online piracy issue, and welcomed the ambitious targets set for cutting unlawful file-sharing, but said that further - wait for it - "digital dithering" meant that those targets would never be met, and that immediate action was required to safeguard the future of the UK's content industries. Basically he wants the 'technical measures' to come sooner. Now preferably. Or yesterday if at all possible.
Look, here's what he said in full: "It's clear what government needs to do to boost the digital music market and achieve its stated objective of significantly reducing illegal downloading by 70-80% in two years - that's to act now to require all ISPs to apply a fair system of 'graduated response'. This would comprise a series of notices followed by technical measures to steer consumers away from illegal filesharing and onto legal online services that reward artists and record labels for their work".
He continued: "Evidence shows that the government's 'write and then sue' approach won't work. And government appears to be anticipating its failure by lining up backstop powers for OfCom to introduce technical measures later. This digital dithering puts thousands of jobs at risk in a creative sector that the government recognises as the driver of the digital economy".
He concluded: "Music companies are in the forefront of developing new digital services for consumers - such as the deal announced yesterday between Universal Music and Virgin Media - but that innovation needs to be balanced with meaningful action to deal with persistent freeloaders".