ICT-Related Regulatory Issue - Term Paper Example

ICT-Related Regulatory Issue: Introduction "The need for information is very consequential in the current technology era in which efficiency and conveniences are emphasized in the operations of daily lives, and as such, the world has seen a lot of changes in the communication sector where information can be exchanged across very great distances in a very short time. One such invention is the advent of the Information Communication Technology (ICT)". This is actually a wide subject that covers communication apparatus and their applications. ICT covers the electronic media including televisions, radio, cell phones, internet and computer (both software and hardware aspects), the satellite system as well as all applications that are related to these machinery. Accessing information is very efficient by use of these means. The European commission affirms that the importance of the Information Communication Technology is not exactly the technology aspect of it but rather the capacity to increase the access to information and be able to serve all the populations that are underserved by these facilities. Many nations have come up with organizations that carry out promotions of ICT since the areas that are disadvantaged in terms of technology are feared to lag behind. Concentrating on technology will only aggravate the problem. On the other hand the free use of ICT can be abused in terms of crimes like internet crimes (especially hacking) among others. Digital Content The advent of ICT has greatly helped the society and the information people access because of these developments will enable innovations and greater productivity and as a result, people's lives will be enriched in terms of quality. Content creation is one of the businesses that are booming the world over. Creativity can be expressed freely through digital content. Production in any business is very important and with ICT development, the productivity of every trade will be affected (Updegrove 2007). Communication and information exchange will help to increase the amount of profits, reduce on the production costs, increase creativity and innovation, and small firms will be encouraged to rise above challenges of size and get to the in the international market. ICT is intended to increase the international awareness and modern science is expected to grow very fast especially in research which will be linked to the rest of the world. Information combined with relevant communication strategy, will result in a knowledgably society. According to the interim report released by Digital Britain in January 2009; there are four major commercial challenges that the digital content market in the United Kingdom face and need to be addressed sooner rather later so as to sustain the healthy digital content use (Tatnall & Davey 2003). First; Digital revenues from digital content market will go down as a result of the fall in the digital distribution and copying expenses. Advertisement and better business models need to be developed so as to boost the distribution of digital content and the business model should be able to survive in the ever-changing environments (Updegrove 2007). The UK government has issued regulatory measures but this should not be confused or misunderstood as a means of preventing the emergence of new business strategies or the hold on the old, inefficient and indefensible models. Regulation of the digital content in this context is intended to contribute constructively to the changeover in the field (Ponder 2006). Secondly; the number of digital outlets has increased drastically over the past few years and this has consequently increased the amount of advertising being done. The trend will only go this way if there is a paid for product or consumer owned services for instance the application downloads or the paid for content, the content from the internet is mostly perceived to be free but when commercialised, it would be through advertisement (Tatnall & Davey 2003). The increased amount of advertising that is seen today has a great impact on the expenses on the content but this impact is commensurate, hence it's consequential to the margins of marketer funded business. A third challenge is the access to the content and the capacity to initiate creativity and innovation across the entire range of distribution strategies and the content appliance. Packaging of products and services has enabled the convergence of several combinations and hence customers can get a mix of content, products and services (Margetts 1999). The establishment of business models around such type of packaging relies mostly on the wholesale access to significant content to enhance the range of packaging that addresses personal requirements of the consumer. Fourth; since digital content can be copied and distributed with a lot of ease, it is very common to find unlicensed and illegal businesses in copying and distributing content. At the same time, there is increased piracy due to increased technology in the areas of Information and Communication Technology, Digital Britain (2009). Due to these threats, there is dire need to develop very effective counter piracy policies and efficient rights enforcement laws since the current ones have been very insufficient. The most important measure to be taken will be to enhance legitimate access to the digital content and these measures will be focused on the development of new business strategies and incentive. This is putting so much pressure on the access of professional content for instance program- making, news gathering and journalism and this will have serious implications on technological developments in future, Digital Britain (2009). Considering all these challenges and especially the advertising model in its celebrated role as a reinforcement to finance for much creation of content, the United Kingdom has to seek other funding means or machinery which would replace in part or entirely, Digital Britain (2009). The Ministerial conference in Vienna where E-inclusion was being debated reached conclusions that: "Broadband is an important product just like electric power or water. It is currently an essential service for the efficient partaking in international trade, culture, education, politics, economy and society. As new broadband service evolved and the advent of battier infrastructure means that the old gaps can now be bridged but new gaps are expected to emerge because some people have access to and can exploit the new technology while others lack this access. Member states are requested to ensure sufficient partaking to information society, by facilitating the citizen's access to ICT facility irrespective of place, economic or social backdrop in specific convergence areas and remote or rural regions of the European Union" Digital Britain (2009). Rights Holders The main benefit of ICT and its success is the provision of knowledge and the ability to share ideas and content; this initiates active participation, creativity and pro-activeness. A major concern in this trade is the provision of reasonable appreciation to the creativity of other people which has traditionally demanded that the rights of the creators be protected and the free access to content be used in a way to allow future creativity and innovations (Tatnall & Davey 2002). The implications of these in the current digital world are that sharing of content be legal and necessary. The conventional machinery to recognise rights holders and obtain consent to share content legally definitely needs fundamental changes and updates so as to be able to meet ever changing demands of this world. There is a clear and instantly recognizable difference between the lawful and unlawful access and sharing of information which should be addressed urgently. "these changes should be effected in a way that realizes that when there is an extensive character and social acceptability of such a type of character that is inconsistent with the laws, the laws, the business strategy the laws have strengthened and the character itself will have to be changed", Joint DCMS/BERR (2008). The government of UK will have to address both old and new media that will allow them opportunities to cater for digital distributors and rights holders and to build up better ways to package the content and sell to the customers. This should have digital content protection structure which can win the confidence of global business. This will be progressively more vital in Digital Britain since almost everybody has access to video competent broadband and most of them also have access to even higher bandwidths (Margetts 1999). Copyrights "Copyright is one of the essential tools for content and information and communications industries. Through this, the people can be able to protect their creations and get rewarded for their creativity. Ensuring a program that is efficient and law enforceable is the main aim of Digital Britain's proposal for changes in the ICT trade", Joint DCMS/BERR (2008). The content should also take into consideration the customers requirements and need to access content as well as offering it at a reasonable price. The UK has already made commitments and a memorandum of understanding has already been established to bring together the rights holders and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in handling illegitimate content sharing among customers. Though these tow groups seem to be having totally different intentions, they can still achieve actions against illegal offers, law enforcement and education, Great Britain Department of Trade and Industry (2000). Effective legal measures will ensure that criminal and civil law contravention is addressed; the government has already launched the National IP crime strategy which has enabled combating piracy. The intellectual property office is in charge of this initiative. The Theory of Innovation The use of Information and Communication Technologies in learning institutions and other forms of training can be very beneficial and the anticipated results are expected to produce important effects in the education sector. Before this is achieved, the innovations will have to be accepted and adopted; the theory of innovation increased the possibility of triumphant adoption process (Kreijns et al 2002). Innovation diffusion proposes that evidently instinctive characteristics of the innovation are significant in the determination of whether they will be adopted or not. Innovation translation ideology in the actor network theory, its argued that people are most important as they can choose to agree to the innovations in its current form, alter them to a form that will be accepted or refuse it in total. Current studies have shown innovation translation model is beneficial especially when taking into consideration the ICT innovations in education institutions and small business organizations, Great Britain Department of Trade and Industry (2000). Digital Britain has gone beyond the innovation translation and it has addressed the changes by proposing ecological structure for the process of change, innovation and creativity. Ecological Model of ICT Innovation The complexity that is involved in the ICT adoption and innovation is difficult to ignore since the problem will still be there and this will make people to have little power over the process (Tatnall 2002). An ecological model can enable the identification of socio technical aspects that resulted into complexity and enable appreciation of technology as a new entity in an attempt to grow and develop in the organisation environment. The ways in which the new technology will interact with environment is very critical. Some of the features that have affected this changes include; energy expenditure and contentment. Introduction of new technical improvements require investments into the human resources, capital, energy and time. According to the ecological model, people tend to reject the use of certain technology if the perceive that the implementation of this strategy would require a lot of energy (Tatnall & Davey 2002). In order to determine the levels that can be called too much, one needs to assess the level or the amount of satisfaction obtained in relation to the expenses. Development of new methods and the analyses of the new benefits may show that it would be more beneficial to the society. This brings a challenge of implementing so many technologies at one. Some employees in certain organizations can feel incompetent or get threatened by competition as they perceive that they are employed on the basis of their current knowledge status and introduction of new technology presents competition (Tatnall 2002). The competition that presents can also be viewed in terms of the resources in that a company or an institution may need to face challenges of reinvesting in some items that it had already taken care of for example some changes in ICT may necessitate acquisition of a server totally incompatible with the ones already in existence. It has also been found that new technology in ICT is bound to survive when it is co-operative. This means that it is able to work with other existing systems. Filling a niche can enable new technology to be generally accepted. This may due to the fact that a group of people do not get to access information because of distance, uncharacteristic equipment or that the content is not available (Kreijns et al 2002). Advancement in ICT technology that is able to bridge this gap will be able to survive. Digital Rights The general public has a right to access information particularly copyright content by use of legitimate means and the access is also regulated. The digital copyright law regulation should take into consideration even museums, archives and libraries so that the public access is sustained even in future. The efforts to ensure that digital content is regulated involve several stakeholders for instance Intellectual Property Office, Museum Libraries archives, and Digital Britain (Tatnall & Davey 2002). The copyright law will have to address the following issues: General fairness in accessing copyright content; importance of preserving digital material for future generations; and specific exemption to the copyright law especially those in care of such content. Conclusion The information and communication technology is a fast growing industry and this growth is being experienced worldwide and especially in countries like the Britain. The information technology industry has established regulations and innovations which have influenced the development of other sectors of technology and economy. Digital Britain forms the foundation of the British Standard for information and communication technology regulation and innovation hence observing its recommendations is critical. References 1. Digital Britain (2009):- Digital Britain Interim Report; - Department for Business Enterprise and regulatory reform. 2. Great Britain Dept. of Trade and Industry (2000): Closing the Digital Divide. Information and Communication Technologies in Deprived Areas; - A Report. Department of Trade and Industry 3. Joint DCMS/BERR (2008):- Digital Britain. The Future of Communications; - Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory reform; - JOINT DCMS/BERR Press Release. 4. Kreijns K. Kirschner P. A. & Jochems W. (2002):- The Sociability of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Environments. Educational Technology & Society;- 5 (1) 8 - 22 5. Margetts H. (1999):- Information Technology in Government; - Britain and America. Rutledge 6. Ponder J.K. (2006):- ICTs for Economic Growth. Theory, - Policy Implications, Case Studies. Strategy and Policy Unit International Telecommunication Union. Briefing Session on Economics;- UNDP Geneva Switzerland 7. Tatnall A. (2002):- Modelling Technological Change in Small Business; - Two Approaches to Theorising Innovation; - In Burgess S. (Ed.) Managing Information Technology in Small Business. Challenges and Solutions. Hershey PA Idea Group 8. Tatnall A. & Davey, B. (2002):- Information Systems Curriculum Development as an Ecological Process. In Cohen, E. (Ed.) IT Education: - Challenges For the 21st Century, Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing, 206-221. 9. Tatnall A. & Davey B. (2003) ICT and Training a Proposal for an Ecological Model of Innovation. Educational Technology and Society, 6 (1). Pp.14-17. 10. Updegrove A. (2007). ICT Standards, Accessibility and Self-Regulation. Consortium Standards Bulletin. Read More