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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am obviously disappointed in that. This Bill, as my noble friend recognises despite his calm and patient dealing with the long scrutiny we have gone through, makes me quite angry. It is true, as the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, said that there was a lot of consultation prior to the publication of the Bill when this issue was being discussed. However, the representations made by consumer interests, educational interests, the ISPs and many others were not taken into account. For the sake of future peace and harmony and good relations, I withdraw any implication that individuals are captured by producers. If people interpreted that personally, I apologise. It is nevertheless the case that the views, particularly of the music industry, have been pressurising Government over the past few years throughout this whole process. When the Government modified their position slightly, following the report of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, the pressure came back on and it was tightened up again. I think there is an imbalance in this Bill. The amendment was not intended to destroy the structure of the Bill—I do not agree with the structure of the Bill but we have debated all that. It was intended to say that the first stage, which the Government themselves have said again today is an educational stage, should indeed be an educational stage. It should not be the start of a process that could end in very substantial sanctions. That would seem to me, if you were starting from scratch, a very sensible way of proceeding. As the Bill stands, it is only an 18-month delay that I am talking about and that is already built into the Bill. It would simply be that when you are sending notification letters to subscribers, who may be utterly unaware that any infringement has taken place, the letters should not accumulate until this House, and this Parliament, have decided that technical measures—namely, heavy sanctions—are actually required. In normal, calmer circumstances certain Members of the House at least may well have accepted that argument. I certainly think that it would have been a major argument in another place. Given the present circumstances, I felt it necessary to make my case for this relatively minor amendment which accepts the general structure the Government have now put in place to ensure that we did in fact get a positive outcome; that is, a lawful system under which consumers can access copyright material. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, that digital rights holders have rights in the digital system. We want some return to them but actually this system does not give any return to rights holders. Closing down a significant number of subscribers does not mean that any money whatever goes to the creative artists. The only people who will immediately benefit from it are perhaps a few well-heeled organisations and their rather unscrupulous lawyers. It is not beyond imagination that those who are hit by this sanction will immediately go out and buy a copy of the original work. Quite where the £200 million that the Government expect to go back to digital rights holders emerges from this process, I am not clear—whereas, if we move to what my noble friend Lord Puttnam described, with the ISPs, file-sharing systems and digital rights holders getting together to create a lawful system, which would be accessible, a guaranteed income would go to the digital rights holders. This Bill does not guarantee income for the digital rights holders. As we go down the line, that may become more apparent. I am hoping that in the process of the code with Ofcom, some of these things may be clarified in a direction that I can support. At the moment, I cannot support this Bill. I recognise, from the opinions expressed around the House, that I should not break the habit of a lifetime and ask the House to vote against the Government. However, I deplore the Bill and am afraid that there is nothing that the noble Lord can say—or my noble friend the Minister, who I hope soon recovers from his affliction. I apologise if this Bill has made his affliction worse and commend his patience and that of his colleagues in dealing with this and other legislation. However, nothing will convince me that this is right. I suspect that, further down the line, we will find that it is horribly wrong and we will be back here in three or four years’ time, trying to find some other way of dealing with this situation. Until that point, I withdraw my amendment. Amendment 2 withdrawn. Clause 8 : Contents of initial obligations code Amendment 3 Clause 8 : Contents of initial obligations code Amendment 3 Moved by