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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, this is the reflection of the earlier amendment of my noble friend Lord Howard. Just as I agree with him that those running registries should make it easy for people to establish what is in them, those holding and wishing to assert copyrights should make it easy for people to find them. I suggest that there should be a system run by Ofcom but not costing it anything, which allows those who wish to ascertain who owns the copyright of a particular piece of material to perform a simple search and find the answer. In the course of time this should mean that not only is it easy for a little photographer or a little creator of any kind to register the copyright in their work so that it cannot be overlooked by even the most short-sighted of exploiters of that copyright, but it becomes easy and simple for those who wish to establish who owns the copyright to find the answer. This is really only possible with modern technology where you can have image search engines and fast-tech search engines and you can characterise music. It would not be a Google search but a search provided by a specific engine provided by Ofcom, licensed by Ofcom and paid for by people who wish to search for copyright. It is perfectly technically feasible and would save people a lot of trouble. I beg to move.