Copyright

Lord Stoneham of Droxford Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Buscombe on initiating this debate and welcome the Government’s ongoing initiative to modernise and try to simplify our copyright provisions. We clearly need to update the law in line with technological developments. There is some evidence that we have been falling behind our competitors and have not made much progress, as we should have done, since the European copyright directive was introduced more than 10 years ago. It is yet another area where the European Union dimension illustrates that we can achieve little on our own as one country. We have to develop our practice in line with other nations to protect our businesses and to counter the power of international companies which seek to ignore and override national legislation and, indeed, taxation policies.

It is a big responsibility to protect our own creative sector. There is huge potential to benefit from our very competitive creative arts sector. The European digital music market alone has grown from €200 million in 2004 to €1.2 billion in 2012. The existing copyright framework and efforts within the European Union to improve cross-border access to licensed content on a pan-European basis have enabled this to be possible and for UK music creators and companies to be a fundamental part of this successful development. However, on 10 October 2013, Maria Martin-Prat, head of the copyright unit in the European Commission internal market directorate-general, warned that if we get the copyright framework wrong, we risk undermining the economy.

There are a number of reasons for reform. First, we have to ensure respect for copyright, which modern copyright legislation must do, reflecting the application of modern technology and consumer expectation. It clearly makes sense, as the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, said, to allow a teacher to use a quotation on an interactive whiteboard or to allow a museum to copy a photograph or film digitally to preserve it.

Secondly, we need to give consumers choice. We should value and encourage the consumer who obtains content legally and should break down barriers to competition, which discourage market delivery and choice. A greater freedom of choice for consumers to use appropriate technology must be encouraged. While clear and fair costs should be appropriate, we should discourage excessive charging or levies.

Thirdly, we need to keep the UK competitive. Improving copyright law must fundamentally improve the health of UK technology and creative arts businesses. Allowing copying for personal use will make it easier for businesses to provide new technology without being held liable for how consumers use their products. Allowing limited use of copyright material for parody will widen the resources for programmers and broadcasters, further enriching our cultural output. I sense that the Government have the right formula on parody as they seem to have the support of our principal broadcasters, which want greater freedom to use material for parody, while they have an interest in protecting their own content and archives.

Fourthly, we should be pioneering research. New technologies can assist significant advances in research. The text and data-mining exception will allow the United Kingdom’s world-leading scientific and academic communities to deliver new advances in medical technology and research.

I will make a few remarks on the detail of the proposed draft exceptions. I expect that there is little dispute over the disability exception or, indeed, over the research libraries and archives exception, which needs simplification to preserve content and improve access. The provision for education seeks to modernise legislation, but the problem for the future is that education is not simply a public good. It has strong commercial potential as well. We have a highly competitive advantage in higher education. Licensing is required to protect teaching content, particularly as it becomes more digitally sourced and with the growth of distance learning.

On private copying, most people accept the need for an individual to be allowed to copy copyright work for their own further use, provided it is not for commercial use. However, as we have heard, the music industry in particular is concerned about revenues that it has already lost in the digital economy and about the development of cloud services. This exception could provide a further threat to copyright music. It has to be made absolutely clear that making a copy for another person or entity would infringe copyright. The scope of an exception should be only for private and personal storage without additional functionality. Within this clarification, the music industry’s ability to license innovative value-added services, such as “scan and match” services in the cloud, would be seriously circumscribed. I hope that the Minister will confirm that he will look further at the music industry’s concerns about the need for further clarification and the whole impact of cloud services.

I return to my home ground of news content and the exception on quotations. Media providers are concerned about Google seeking to widen the exception on quotations, which could increase the likelihood of copyright infringement. It would be preferable for the quotation exception to be cast as a list of specific permitted purpose-based activities. Explicit exception for criticism and reviews should be retained as an exception in its own right. However, there is great concern that the quotation exception could include the principle of temporary copies made for the purpose of browsing by an unlicensed end-use, something that would be further complicated by cloud-based services. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us on these points in his summing up.

In conclusion, change, modernisation and simplification are inevitable. Copyright has to adapt to technology of the present and the future. We have to adjust to allow businesses to develop, but we must protect the competitive advantage of our creative businesses while seeking to simplify regulation, if we can. The Government are treading a difficult, even-handed path across a minefield. Provided that they ensure the fine print of the exceptions and reassure our key creative art providers, particularly in music and news content, about their worries their reforms are to be welcomed.