Tees Valley creatives welcome digital proposals

TEES Valley’s creative industries have welcomed proposals to improve broadband connectivity - but say plans to stamp out online piracy are unlikely to deter fraudsters.

Local firms said the broadband upgrade was a much-needed boost for business but more needed to be done to address a North-South divide.

Jonathan Wheatley, MD of Stokesley IT firm MC Ware, said: “It’s a good step forward. The problem is the disparity between internet speeds in various parts of the country.

“Speeds available in London are phenomenal compared with the speeds we have up here.”

He said although it would be “incredibly difficult” to police illegal file-sharing, a more effective approach would be to provide subscription-based services which allowed users to download music and videos for a fee.

This week Virgin Media and Universal Music unveiled a service offering unlimited and unrestricted music downloads for a monthly charge.

Thomas Howsam, technical director of Middlesbrough web development firm Thap, said technology such as Spotify - which provides free music streaming but does not allow users to download songs to their PCs - would help to “cut down on the amount of illegal file sharing”.

Ministers have taken note of the pain that illegal downloading is causing to Britain’s creative industries.

Believing intellectual property protection was “something of a red herring”, Mark Elliott, director of Middlesbrough’s DigitalCity business, said: “I’m not sure it’s something we can do anything about or should be concentrating on. Copying has always been around.

“The focus should be on creating great products and getting them out into the marketplace.”