---

Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, this amendment is an interesting one since it recognises that from the perspective of the copyright owner collecting the evidence to form the copyright infringement report, there is no way of knowing whether it is the subscriber apparently infringing copyright, somebody within their household or organisation, or somebody parked outside in the street piggybacking on the connection. All that the copyright owner will see is an apparent infringement taking place—I stress an apparent infringement taking place—at a particular date and time, via a specific IP address. They will not know the circumstances because they will not know who it is. In many ways the reason for this legislation is to allow the copyright holder to take action that connects information about the infringement to the subscriber responsible for the connection while maintaining anonymity. However, while agreeing that this is what happens in practice, the text that the amendment proposes to delete is useful. It makes clear that it may not be the subscriber that is personally responsible for the infringement and as such also makes it plain that, in those circumstances, the provisions continue to apply—although of course we have listened to what noble Lords said in Committee and have made it much clearer how subscribers can deal with that. In fact, we have sent a lot of information out to that effect. My noble friend might suggest that the amendment encompasses the existing text and says it in fewer words—a clear profit. Unfortunately, while I admire the succinctness of the amendment, it uses the phrase, ""through the subscriber's IP address"," which is not an accurate description, as we have said on a number of occasions. The IP address is dynamic, generally speaking, changing each time a subscriber logs on, while the amendment implies a fixed point of contact. Since the amendment does not seek to change radically what is covered by the existing text but introduces potential difficulties, I hope that my noble friend will agree to withdraw the amendment. In relation to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howard, the position of hotels is the same as that with cafés, universities and libraries. Provided the hotel made suitable arrangements to ensure whatever security it needed to adopt or whatever conditions of service it put down to its guests—the levels of access—that would be a reasonable defence. It was on this that we gave quite a lot of information and I would refer the noble Lord back to that. We were trying to respond to the genuine concerns that were expressed about a whole range of different scenarios; universities, libraries, cyber-cafes, hotels et cetera. We made it clear that that there are reasonable actions that could be taken; and if those actions were taken, that in itself would be a reasonable defence. I refer the noble Lord back to the information that we have already circulated. In the light of what I have just said, given the technical problems with the amendment, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw the amendment.