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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, we are a long way away from getting a sensible resolution to this. That was a valiant attempt by the Minister. I agree that there are problems with definition, but Clause 42 is such a broad clause. It is controversial in the view of many people; for example, freelance photographers. They, along with the Royal Photographic Society, have made strong representations. Later we will discuss amendments that deal with their interests. The Government must think more carefully about how the clause can be refined. We know that there will be a problem in the other place, where Members will not have time to debate the issues. We will have what is traditionally called the wash-up at the other end. I will say that parts of the Bill will have a much easier passage than this set of proposals. I would hate these proposals to fall in their entirety because I believe it is highly frustrating for the British Library and for other cultural institutions not to have these orphan rights properly spelt out. Gowers talked about orphan rights and so on and so forth. It is not as if there is not some pedigree for orphan rights proposals and for them to be dealt with. The Government have not, however, spelt out in the way they should how these orphan rights will be limited in their scope and how these collecting societies and other licensees—licensors, I suppose I should say—are going to be dealt with. As these amendments go through, we will continue to express dissatisfaction with this clause for entirely understandable reasons without wishing to sound as though we are trying to do down the cultural institutions that many of us value very highly.