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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

I rise very briefly—I see the look of horror on the Minister’s face—to support the amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman. This group of amendments is important. In the photographic profession, metadata have become extremely important. The noble Viscount made the case very clearly for the sanction of a fine if these metadata are interfered with. Amendment 292B is also extremely important to cope with the activities of search engines. This is a completely new area. It has particular relevance to the actions of search engines and other operators who spider the internet; copies are gathered and often stored or processed by an automated process and no human mind would normally read rights management information, which is associated with or embedded in the protected subject matter. Machine-to-machine permissions and consents are becoming vital in the digital age but the present law is unclear about the circumstances in which the operator of the automated process will be required to abide by rights management information contained in or associated with copyright work. This amendment is designed to deal with that.