Last Friday, Digital Britain supremo Lord Carter unveiled a Digital Rights Agency (DRA) “straw man”, inviting public views as to whether it should be, “torched, tolerated or a touchstone for the start point of constructive debate and design."

The responses should address what role any DRA, “should play in protecting and promoting the legal use of copyright content online, and how industry, consumer groups and government can work together to create an environment where investment in creativity is rewarded,” said Carter.

However, it looks like the two main points in the punt for public comment are: who exactly is going to fund this agency, and who will have the clout to legally enforce any decisions the DRA needs to pronounce on. And does it become an independent industry body with back-up legal powers held by Ofcom? Presumably Lord Carter will pronounce more authoritatively in the final Digital Britain report due in the summer, but this particular “straw man” consultation will end on 30 March.

Coincidentally, anybody watching ITV1 the night before the unveiling of the DRA proposal, would have seen that classic British horror film The Wicker Man, with Edward Woodward’s god-fearing police officer uncovering pagan rituals and other shenanigans on a Scottish Isle while investigating a missing person.

One of the “other shenanigans” involves being tempted by Britt Eckland dancing naked in the room next to the one Woodward is trying to sleep in. I suspect Lord Carter has yet to be similarly tempted, but he should know that Woodward, the government’s official in that film, ends up being burnt alive in a 60 foot high wicker man at the end of the movie.

Lord Carter is unlikely to suffer the same fate, but the proposals for any DRA just might.

By Dave Bailey