If Lord (Stephen) Carter thought that people had finished yet kicking him over his woeful interim report on Digital Britain, he can think again.

The latest to weigh in is the software industry, through the offices of FAST/IIS - the Federation Against Software Theft/Investors In Software.

Now, Fast is often portrayed as the bad guys in some places (not least for the neat way that they equate illicit software use, or use beyond a confusing and often impenetrable software licence, as "theft" - nice linguistic capture there). But it's clear that in this instance, they feel mightily aggrieved that Lord Carter's ruminations don't take account of the fact that software makes a big contribution to the UK economy too.

We quoted some of the Fast remarks in our story about Spotify, but it's worth having a read at greater length.

Here's how it begins:

FAST IiS (The Federation Against Software Theft and Investors in Software) today questioned the entertainment sector, asking, 'why look for protected status when you should be adapting to the changing world?'

Chief Executive, John Lovelock said, "Over the past decade the software industry has evolved to become more user focused and ever more adaptable to changing market conditions. The right to use software, that is to say licensing, has evolved from 'single instance', 'per user' and 'site' licences to encompass Application Service Provision, Software-as-a-Service, Pay-As-You-Go and so on."

Break off here and imagine the joys of trying to apply site licences to music. Except that is pretty much what the PRS does - licenses people to play music in a location. Single instance? That's the "radio". Per-user? Hmm, perhaps that's a concert. But the music industry is gradually getting into music-as-a-service through streaming and so on. But let's continue.

"The point is that the entertainment sector appear to have lobbied the Government to consider establishing a 'pirates tax' on all of us as well as yet another quango to oversee it, meaning more cost, and more hassle.

Here, of course, he's referring to the Rights Agency, that mystical quango that Carter wants to create to either pick or write the best possible DRM that's ever been built. And damn those folk who've spent their lives and millions of pounds doing that before. They didn't have the power of Quangojuice™.

"I think it's time that these industries came up to speed in the modern market and changed their business models to encourage their customers to use the internet for their purchasing."

The fascinating thing here is that this is the first time I can think of that the software industry has come out angry about this apparent favouritism for the music/film industries. Lobbying, eh?

FAST IiS contend that the Government's interim 'Digital Britain' report investigating the state of the digital economy has failed to approach the issue of intellectual property rights in a coherent way; and until the government works with all the digital content providers representative bodies any attempts to legislate in favour of any one particular sector is not only unfair but also seriously misguided.

Lovelock explained, "All digital content is equal before the law and so too should be all digital industries. A piecemeal approach will confuse digital consumers, both the public and businesses, will muddy the legal framework and will therefore ultimately impede Britain's success in the new digital economy of the twenty-first century. The UK is no longer a manufacturing economy, it's a creative and services economy. Intellectual property contributes $53 billion to the economy. Eight per cent of our gross domestic product is down to IP, and two million people are employed in our creative industries.

"Put bluntly we all need this sector to be working effectively and fairly. Favouritism is not going to help ailing business methods, and making all consumers face a 'broadband tax' to cover the few that steal content smacks of cynical revenue protection," Lovelock concluded.

So what are your thoughts? Do the music and film industries get too much favouritism? Or is Fast and its friends just whingeing because they don't really count?