The UK has been considering a plan that would force Internet service providers to "cooperate" with content owners to curtail illegal file-swapping, and a new document released today by the UK government lays out the timeline for this plan. If ISPs don't voluntarily implement some sort of antipiracy system by April 2009, the government will introduce its own legislation to make them do so.

It's just one part of the government's plan to make the UK a powerhouse in the creative industries. The Department for Culture, Media, and Sport talked up its plan in a paper called "Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy" (PDF), and it includes plenty of "carrots" for the creative industries. The government plans to pump plenty of money into special schools focusing on arts and music, developing five new "centers of excellence" in various arts, and making sure there are at least 5,000 apprentice positions in the creative industries by 2013. All children will get access to five hours of "culture" (art, music, theater, dance lessons) a week. Good stuff.

But the plan comes with plenty of "sticks," as well. One of these concerns file-sharing. The 2006 Gowers Report on intellectual property in the UK recommended that some form of government regulation be drafted if ISPs and content owners could not voluntarily agree on a system to curtail illicit downloads. That's exactly the approach that the government is taking now, and the report still says that "we would encourage the adoption of voluntary or commercial agreements between the ISPs and all relevant sectors." But, on the assumption that this might not happen, the government will spend 2008 deciding on "regulatory arrangements" that it hopes to adopt in April 2009 if no voluntary agreement is forthcoming.

In addition to the pressure on ISPs, which is a bit like asking telephone companies to monitor every call in the country for evidence of illegal activity, the government also hopes to boost penalties for copyright infringement, fund expert police training to deal with intellectual property crimes, and launch various educational and enforcement campaigns. "Fake Free London" hopes to make London free from counterfeit products by the time of the 2012 Olympic Games, while a new education program hopes to reach "children of all ages" in the school system. Children as young as nine years old will also be taught to think about how they can "protect and profit from their ideas."

It's a fairly comprehensive plan in the sense that it mobilizes many different state sectors on behalf of the creative industries: education, police action, industry regulation. Whether it will work is another question. While many parts of the plan are unobjectionable or seem like excellent ideas, some of the enforcement material feels a bit weak. The report uncritically quotes estimates of "losses" from illegal downloads, which are notoriously hard to quantify (it's difficult to know how many of those items would actually have been purchased) and come from established players like the BSA and the IFPI.

The plan also asks for "proposals from the creative industries" for industry-funded "mobile specialized enforcement teams" who could crack down on piracy. And it stresses the need to educate people about intellectual property issues, but the education that seems to be envisioned is all about adhering copyrights and learning to demand one's maximum rights.

In other words, the plan looks like something drawn up by industry groups, with little sign that the huge amount of creativity represented by Creative Commoners will be considered, or that education will provide a robust education in fair dealing, or that any student will ever be told about the ways that being less-than-draconian with DRM, copyrights, and licensing can actually be a boon for many creative professionals. The plan is still light enough on details that this may not be the case, but it would certainly not be unexpected given what we have seen around the world from government and industry-backed IP education initiatives.