Never let it be said that the BBC's head of digital Ashley Highfield is behind the times.
In a posting on the BBC website today, he ponders the question of net neutrality and whether ISPs should have any liability for illegal content that is being shared on their networks. A hot topic, to be sure.
In his post he refers to the BPI's ongoing attempt to get ISPs to block filesharing traffic, and their call for a 'value recognition right' (a tax on ISPs). It seems to me that he's getting his wires crossed though: in fact it wasn't the BPI, but AIM (an alternative body) which proposed the value recognition right, and they did so two years ago.
Not only that, but the response he quotes at length from the Open Rights Group, which he says was issued "last week" was actually from (yes) two years ago (July 2006, to be precise.
In his defence, Ashley says that "this issue has been around for as long as the net has", which could account for why two years might seem like the blink of an eye - or perhaps it just explains the glacial pace of some the BBC projects he's championed...
