Defamation Bill

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Lord Triesman

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I will try to do this as briefly as possible. I support my noble friend Lady Hayter’s amendments and also—I hope it does him no harm—the amendment and comment of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury. I was responsible for intellectual property at the relatively short lived Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. One of the things that I found completely astounding, almost every day, was that when we tried to deal with widespread theft of other people's intellectual property, and the propensity of some people to use the internet for serious criminal purposes involving children or whatever, one argument always and consistently was put to us. “We are only a conduit. We are no different from the Post Office. It went through in a sealed envelope in the mail. Who would know? Why on earth should we take any responsibility?”.

What I observed, as noble Lords may expect, from this sequence of events was that it was perfectly okay for people who are creating music, film, literature or many other products that are vital to the creative output of the United Kingdom—and very successful in the interests of the economy of the United Kingdom. But their interests were as nothing when compared with this apparent complete barrier to dealing with anything that happened to be done through a web platform or internet company. They had no responsibility in any circumstances. I have never bought that argument, which is why I agree so strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, on the matter. It may be very complex and it may be that the technology keeps advancing, but the reality is that, unless there are some restraints on what people can do with this form of technology, the argument inevitably goes to the point where it is possible to protect individuals, even with inequality of arms, from some forms of publication but they are completely and inevitably lost when it comes to electronic publication. That is a very dangerous and damaging concept for our society.

I know the importance of the businesses and the value of the work conducted by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and others, but I respectfully say that the idea that Twitter or anybody else is not making money out of it is completely bizarre. It is not, of course, making money in the sense that people who post anything on Twitter are paying for it; at least in general they are not. However, advertising revenues are created around these new media platforms, including, pre-eminently, Facebook. The ability of companies to be able to track people’s interests and identify how to approach them with commercial products—I have seen this in sports websites that are associated with Facebook, for example—is an amazing way of generating vast amounts of money. It is no surprise that the companies have become worth so much money in their quoted positions as well.

[The Earl of Erroll]

The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, had Second Reading to say all this. I have some points on the amendments.

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I do not accept that supporting the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is a Second Reading proposition. It may be very difficult, in a number of contexts, to achieve what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is suggesting, but it is well worth doing it. A comparison can be made with somebody at a football match. I heard over very many years that when people made loud, offensive, grotesque, racist comments in a football crowd you could do nothing because of the great mass of faces. Then CCTV came along and we were able to do something about it—and it was quite right that we did, though apparently not yet fully successfully. There will be technical means—there probably already are. That is why the amendment should be supported.