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Digital Economy Bill [Lords]

As ever, my right hon. Friend makes an important point. Orphan works legislation is incredibly important, because there is a potentially huge benefit in being able to unlock for the public archives such as those of the British Library, the BBC and universities, but there is a big problem in establishing the ownership of the rights to those works. This Bill was an excellent opportunity to sort out that problem, but under its provisions as drafted, it would be possible for someone to remove an image and all its identifying marks, and for that image then to end up being pirated all over the world. Again, these provisions could have been sorted out and improved by proper scrutiny in Committee in the House of Commons.