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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, as has been acknowledged by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, we have previously debated the issue covered by Amendment 184 at length: the position of libraries and other cultural institutions and their subscribers under the provisions of the Bill. As I have said, but it bears repeating, we value highly the service that such bodies provide in the community, but we think that so long as they take pragmatic and proportionate measures to protect their systems and deter copyright infringement, they have nothing to worry about. I do not agree that we should make them a special case within the legislation, or that their position makes them particularly deserving of special treatment within the technical obligations code over and above more commercial networks or, indeed, the position of the general public. I simply do not believe that a university or a library either should or would want to give people free rein to act unlawfully simply because the institution serves a cultural or educational purpose. That must be wrong. I also cannot accept the point about young people made by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I do not want to paraphrase him, but I think he referred to young people as "free agents". They might be free agents in many respects, but not when they enter the library and not when they participate in the university system. There are codes of behaviour that they have to accept. What we are discussing, in ensuring that they do so, is how libraries and universities can take what we would consider to be reasonable and proportionate measures. Amendment 196 goes further and would allow anyone using anyone else’s connection with or without their permission to infringe copyright with impunity. That does not stand up to scrutiny. It is only right that people should be expected to take responsibility for what happens via the connection they pay for, which almost invariably would be provided under contract with a prohibition on using the service or allowing it to be used for unlawful purposes. I want to try to address the question of libraries and universities, so I shall read certain points into the record. We should consider how libraries currently prevent unlawful behaviour. Where library internet access is offered on fixed machines, those machines would not have peer-to-peer software and are set up to block attempted downloads and installation of the software. For fixed library terminals, it is therefore unlikely that they would or could be used for peer-to-peer copyright infringement. Furthermore, library networks have firewalls which do not allow access to a number of sites, such as those containing Flash technology. These firewalls are generally for security rather than file-sharing reasons. In addition, libraries will have a filter system which should block access to known illegal sites. Obviously this is not a foolproof option since it would depend on the sites blocked. In common with commercial services, all library services should have a conditions-of-use policy which users have to agree to before getting access to the network. This will state that, for example, no unlawful activity including copyright infringement is permitted. Policy usually stipulates that legal liability for unlawful activities sits with the individual, not the library service. I have not yet got as much information as I would like on universities, but we are pursuing this and I will make this information available to noble Lords in-between these debates. The situation in universities is more complex than in libraries, not least because, generally speaking, they need and operate networks with much higher bandwidth. In principle, we do not see any problem in adopting the same approach as outlined for libraries, but we are currently involved in discussions with JANET, the UK’s education and research network, and some educational establishments on how their networks operate and the actions they currently take. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, mentioned a particular university; we will try to pursue that one. I hope that with the assurances and the explanation I have given, noble Lords will feel able to withdraw the amendment.