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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, the issue of retransmission fees was looked at in depth by the Digital Britain report, which much of this Bill emanates from. The final report examined the possibility of removing Section 73 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. This would remove the exemption that cable operators currently enjoy from paying a fee for the retransmission of certain wireless broadcasts within a limited geographical area. This is designed to ensure that public service content is spread across as much of the country as possible. The report concluded that because removing this exemption would generate, ""no additional revenues for the UK television industry"," the Government, ""remains unconvinced that the removal of section 73 will generate the necessary future revenues to fund content creation in the UK"." We do not believe that it is necessary to include a specific power to examine this issue so soon after the Government have done so. We also believe that it should be government who examines the issues, not Ofcom. As part of this party’s wider policy-formulation process, we will keep the issue under review, but we do not see the need to legislate so to do.