Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Brinton

Monday 28th January 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I particularly support the comments made just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, and the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, on how the proposals would affect teachers in schools, colleges and universities. We have already heard that in order to use any type of digital information, users will need to apply for a licence. In addition to teachers, publishers reproducing photographs of industrially produced articles or museums and archives wanting to display them will also require licences. Along with other noble Lords, I am concerned that this will stifle the development of the creative sector, which is vital to the growth of the economy. There needs to be a balance between what is trying to be achieved and the practical problems that teachers and others would face.

I am also concerned that the government impact assessment focuses solely on commercial designs—as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson—particularly replica furniture and other household goods. It is essential that non-commercial users are also consulted; they are currently covered by Section 52 of the CDPA, as has been mentioned. Those would include academics, museums, archives, libraries and publishers to make sure that the repeal of this provision does not have a negative, unintended consequence.

On Amendment 28EB, I am grateful for the reference by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones to props in theatre. Unfortunately, the second paragraph of his amendment would create a practical problem. Before I went to Cambridge, I was a stage manager at the BBC. When you ordered a prop, you ordered it in one of three forms. It was either fully practical, for example a phone that would ring and you could speak to somebody; practical, so that you could pick it up and it would look and sound like the real thing; or non-practical—basically wood painted to look like the required item. All three of those were an identical telephone. Unfortunately, the clause would create a real problem, because the intention was to produce the article, as defined here, with no intention at all to infringe any copyright. I suspect that, with phones being so cheap these days, people do not go to the bother that they used to in the early and mid-70s when I was carrying out these orders, but there are plenty of other things within the creative sector that would be caught by this unintentional consequence.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

I want to respond very briefly to my noble friend. This amendment is intended for an entirely different purpose. It is not designed to deal with the props issue. The amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, was to deal with that, but this is to deal with an entirely different issue to do with follow-on design. Young designers use inspiration from an existing artistic three-dimensional work and want to incorporate that. That is the purpose of this amendment. This is needed in addition to other amendments to the clause. That is why the more you look at Clause 65, the more problematic it becomes.

[Baroness Brinton]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that clarification.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, in the interests of time, I really will just say “me too”. I very much support the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, I realise that I failed to speak to Amendment 30, so if I may I will just finish this group.

An orphan works license must provide remuneration for relevant rights holders, specifically the holding of money in escrow to remunerate rights holders who come forward within a certain time period. New Section 116C(4) of the Bill states:

“The regulations must provide for the treatment of any royalties or other sums paid in respect of a licence”.

That is welcome, but could be much clearer using the more broadly recognised term of “remuneration”. While royalties are common in the music industry, in the publishing industry royalties are used to describe payment made solely to authors. The word “remuneration” is also preferable for the avoidance of doubt as distinct from compensation, which would suggest a need for rights holders to prove harm before being able to receive their monies.