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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, the noble Lord has not answered my question. What work? He need not answer me now, but will he please write to me saying what work would have to be done beyond adding a line or two to a letter which will have to be written anyway to obtain these data? What work will be necessary beyond that for which my noble friend has asked in adding up a few figures and comparing them with those of previous years to provide the result? In what way does he not understand that we have to do that in order to comprehend the significance of the level of illegal downloading and the consequences of this measure in reducing it or otherwise? That is the only way in which we can judge it. Reducing the level of illegal downloading is not in itself an absolute good. If we reduce the level of illegal downloading, all we will do is to reduce a lot of people’s enjoyment of music and films. If we do not at the same time increase the level of revenue to the copyright owners, we will do nothing for them. We will produce a widespread bad, but no good. Just depriving people of something is not a good thing to do. It is good only if we can get more revenue for the copyright holders. That is how the effectiveness of this measure ought to be judged. It is an absolutely vital part of judging the performance of this Bill to know what its effect is on the revenue of copyright owners. That will cost mere pence compared with the cost of assessing the level of illegal downloads, which will require extensive research.