---

Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I very much hope that this is the last time I will speak in what has been a very protracted series of debates seeing this Bill through to its passage down the corridor. I find myself in a very odd, paradoxical situation. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, is right: I bow to no one in my defence of the rights of legitimate copyright owners and also in maintaining that—in my judgment—the creative industries will eventually atrophy unless adequate protections are created and a respect for copyright is developed. Having said that, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Razzall. I do not believe that enough has been done, or enough intelligence brought to bear, in creating a serious balance between what I would refer to as free-use protocols and copyright protection. The ball was dropped badly early on by the failure of the Government to understand that, in exchange for a firm commitment to protect copyright, a review should have been undertaken of those areas in which copyright could be freed up. We have done a pretty good job in this House in the area of orphan works, but there are many other areas where copyright unnecessarily prohibits educational use as well as any number of other uses—clip rights, for example, in the film industry. A trade-off should have been orchestrated early on between firm protection on the one hand, and optimum free use as advocated by the Creative Commons movement on the other. That was the first missed opportunity. As to the other missed opportunity—I would be grateful if the Minister would help me on this—why on earth were the ISPs early on allowed to wriggle off the hook of their obligations as part and parcel of the value chain by which copyright material creates revenues and reaches customers? What kind of strange double think was it that allowed the ISPs to believe they were not part of that value chain? I used an analogy on the radio the other day which is not unreasonable: it is rather like the owners of chemist shops deciding that they have no responsibility for what prescription drugs are or are not sold over their counters. Every chemist understands that if you open a chemist’s shop you immediately take on a series of clear responsibilities—not only health and safety responsibilities but responsibilities for the products you sell. How was it that the ISPs managed to convince the Government that they were not part of a legitimate value chain with all the responsibilities that come with it? This is what puzzles me most. I sincerely believe that it lies at the core of the problems with the Bill, and I would be grateful if, at this very late stage of Third Reading, the Minister could explain to the House exactly how this occurred.