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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I can see the purpose of the amendments; we should use "must" rather than "may", because we must consult everyone and leaving too much to discretion can be dangerous. Sadly, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, does not appear to be here. I can see a possible point in consulting the judiciary, despite what the noble Lord just said, because copyright law is extremely complex, and it could well be that inadvertently the code is not realistic in terms of the actual law of copyright, particularly when we are dealing with it internationally. Some people who are serving up files for unlawful download will be using foreign-based servers within areas which come under the Berne convention. There may be a legal level to this which should be consulted. To ignore that could be unwise, so I can see good purpose in that. In general, I support the amendments; they are eminently sensible.