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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

The wording of the Act and the wording of the proposed new clause relate to service providers. Therefore in practice it is going to be the ISPs, so I correct the noble Earl in that respect. We are simply building on existing Section 97A. This is not about a blind trampling over the rights of internet users or consumers, but about the rights of creators both large and small. Quite often we have heard noble Lords describe the creative industries as the "big boys". There are small creators as well as large creators and the concern on these Benches, and I am sure on the Conservative Benches, is for the smaller creators just as much as for the larger ones. Let us not forget that many of those who have been talking to us during the passage of the Bill represent musicians, actors, film technicians, engineers and the trade unions. All support measures that will stop their members’ jobs being affected by copyright infringement. That is of great importance. I shall deal briefly with some of the issues raised by the Minister. He seemed to demonstrate an enormous lack of confidence in our courts. I have shown that Section 97A, which the Government themselves inserted into the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, tackles infringement effectively by way of the courts, and this new provision does exactly the same. The Minister complains that there will be no proper guidance for the poor old judges, who will not be able to work out whether someone is abusing the court process, whether they are genuinely bringing forward evidence, or whether they are seriously trying to oppress people in terms of costs and so forth. I do not have that lack of confidence in the courts, and I think that the Minister needs to reconsider. Further, I do not believe that this will involve thousands of sites. As soon as the ISPs notice that this legislation has gone through, they will alter their behaviour. We have seen what has happened in Sweden where there has been a steep fall in pirate sites, and I believe that it would be exactly the same under this legislation. We also cannot accept the Minister’s points about the EU technical directive in this case. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, made the point very effectively. If the Minister thinks that the wording of proposed new Section 97B is not precisely apposite for the purpose, it can always be changed at Third Reading to make sure that it is valid. We would welcome amendments to that effect. The Minister talked of "no defences" and "no guidance", and I have made the point about our judges. Our intellectual property rights judges are extremely well equipped to deal with this matter. On the question of the impact on changing public behaviour and the issue of people migrating to encrypted sites, I do not believe that that is going to be the case. What will happen is that, yes, we will see a change in behaviour, but it will be wholly positive, not negative. As for being precipitate, I could never describe the Government as precipitate. When I look back to the Gowers review so many years ago, it is the very reverse of what the Government are doing. I do not believe that this is precipitate. We have debated in the proper fashion the merits of this kind of procedure and what needs to be done in the course of primary legislation over any number of days. The conclusion validly reached on both Opposition Benches is that we need something extra. I do not know why it has taken the Government so long to come to no conclusion whatsoever in this respect, but I believe that this will send a powerful message to our creative industries that we value what they do and that we want to protect what they do. While we do not believe in censoring the internet, we are responding to genuine concerns expressed by the creative industries about the provision of a process whereby their material can be accessed legally in a satisfactory manner. The emphasis is on "legally". I would very much like to test the opinion of the House. Division on Amendment 54A Contents 165; Not-Contents 140. Amendment 54A agreed. Moved by