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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

This is a probing amendment to see whether Her Majesty's Government have thought through the impact that the introduction of one new obligations code may have on existing commercial transactions between internet service providers and rights holders. If an internet service provider and a rights holder have come to a commercial arrangement to tackle illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing with which both parties are content, will that arrangement have to be torn up if it does not meet the standards set within the code? If that has to happen, what would be the situation if they were not able to come to a new agreement that satisfied the code? They might even find themselves going to court to clarify matters. Surely private commercial arrangements should be encouraged as a way of dealing with this sort of problem. Government action that might impede making such arrangements is very undesirable. Quite apart from the practical difficulties that I have highlighted, which might arise, there is also the situation where a single company is both the rights holder and an internet service provider. Will it have to make reports, notifications and lists in the same way? I can see the attractions of a single universal code—there are obvious advantages—but it would seem difficult to draft such a code that would apply to all situations without finding that problems had been created en route. We are back to the old law of unintended consequences. I look forward to hearing from the Minister that these things have been thought through and of how they are to be dealt with. I beg to move.