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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 256, I will speak also to other amendments in the group. Essentially, the amendment is designed to probe the intentions of government regarding those bodies other than collective licensing schemes which the clause appears to permit. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, is correct that it is entirely valid for many cultural organisations to have the ambition to be licensing schemes. However, no distinction appears to be made between commercial and cultural organisations. That is the fear at the root of the clause. No doubt all of us will have more to say on later amendments. In the absence of proper reassurance from the Government that there is a distinction to make between commercial and non-commercial organisations, the amendment is designed to say that the only licensing organisations should be those run by copyright holders. We now seem to have a definition of an orphan work which is much more satisfactory. No doubt we will come to that in a moment when we consider the government amendments. There is no doubt that the clause has been improved, but these amendments are designed to deal with a number of clarifications in terms of the sorts of administrative costs that could be charged by a collective licensing body and so on. A great deal could be said here, and no doubt we will use the amendments as we go through our proceedings to explicitly talk about further aspects. This group of amendments is about the right for others, which are not collective schemes, to be licensed. It is extremely important that the Government give reassurance on that matter, particularly regarding commercial organisations. I beg to move.