Copyright and Rights in Performances (Certain Permitted Uses of Orphan Works) Regulations 2014

Debate between Viscount Bridgeman and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Grand Committee

[Viscount Bridgeman (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a non-executive director of the Bridgeman Art Library, where the use of orphan works is a not inconsiderable part of its business.

The library has in fact benefited from, shall we say, the slightly relaxed attitude that has been so eloquently referred to by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott. My noble friend mentioned Canada and Hungary, where admittedly a very low number of licences are issued, but proper, diligent verification schemes are in progress there. We look to the Minister for reassurance.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the orders and noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. It is a bit of a reunion. I have been missing our regular fixes of IP craft and lore—and the pain that goes with having to read up on all this stuff again and trying to remember where we were the last time we were here. I hope there will be other opportunities, perhaps not in the immediate future, where we might get together. Maybe we should form a dining club or something and we could all go off and talk about it.

Like other noble Lords, I had some difficulty in disentangling the two orders. They point in slightly different directions, they do not take the same approach and the regulatory frameworks are rather different. But it seems a bit of a missed opportunity not to have had a single order, for the benefits of rights holders at least, which dealt with what the rules were and how they varied according to the domestic or the EU side. I can understand the logic for what the Government have done but it would have been possible, I think, to have had a go at that and come up with something that would have been easier to do.

Other points have already been raised in the debate, which I was going to touch on. However, again, we make a mistake if we try to think of this initiative, which was of course foreshadowed in earlier primary legislation, in the absence of considering how it impacts on the Copyright Hub. We all wish that well and think that it will be a huge step forward as regards the operation of the creative industries in this country—which must inevitably be dealing with exactly the same material as we are talking about here. If there is to be an effective Copyright Hub, it must also go to the 91 million pieces of information held in an orphan state.

Isn’t “orphan” a wonderful word? It makes you feel all warm and cuddly. You want to embrace these statutes and take them forward, because orphans must be helped. On the other hand, the reality is somewhat different.

I will make only a couple of points on the certain permitted uses of orphan works regulations, one of which is about the money. Like my noble friend Lord Howarth, I am not exactly clear what is happening as regards the fund that has to be created—if it has to be created—on behalf of revenant right holders when the relevant body operates to bring forward material that has previously been orphaned. It would be helpful if the Minister could respond to that so that we have a clear arrangement.

Given the amounts concerned—the quotations for examples that have been given already—they are so low that it is not reasonable to expect these bodies, many of whom are strapped for cash, to hold an escrow of moneys that could have been used to maintain and do this activity, particularly when it is likely that the payments out would be reasonably small and/or insurance could be obtained for it. A fair compensation is presumably trivial relative to the overall running costs of many of the institutions—certainly to the ones that I have been familiar with—and I would have thought that there is some room for flexibility. Perhaps that can be noted and picked up when we see the annual report or the first report on this.

My second point is that again, like a number of previous speakers, I am not sure what the logic of having a time-limited area is. If it is true that we are talking about material that is very unlikely to have revenant rights holders, and that an initial licensing period—which is certainly what we discussed when we talked about the primary legislation—is the appropriate thing to do, just in case it flushes out those things, then second and subsequent licences could easily be indefinite, particularly if there is a provision. I understand that the order says that if the right holder presents themselves and is clearly the owner of the work, the licence can be stopped immediately. I do not get the point of having excessive, burdensome bureaucracy over what would be a very small number of licences anyway at very low cost, which would cause both the institution and probably the IPO considerable additional work.

Other points apply to varying parts of both the regulations, and some of them are quite detailed, so I do not expect the Minister to respond to them all today; I look forward to one of her wonderful letters. First, there is the position of the revenant right holder. Is this person sufficiently considered by the scheme, and if so, is the treatment fair as a whole? The Government’s rather brave assumptions are that there will not be many revenants. I looked that up on Google and it turns out that it is a word for zombie—so there will not be many zombies. “Revenant” is probably a more technical term. Those that reappear, according to the Government, will be happy that their works have been uncovered, subjected to diligent search and licensed, and that the terms of the licences already granted—which cannot be varied—are fair. We do not know whether those assumptions are correct. However, I worry that a right holder who would have refused to grant a licence had he or she been located is unlikely to be pleased with the outcome, as the material is licensed and goes on the register as an orphan work, possibly with a licence that might be set to run for as long as seven years.

Stakeholders representing various right holders have already pointed out that the flow charts which the IPO had prepared made no reference to the possibility of a right owner who had not been identified by the applicant as part of the diligent search process coming forward once the application appeared on the register. The stakeholders suggested that it would be sensible to have a pause in the process once the application had appeared on the register, just for a short time before the licence was granted, to avoid the licence coming into force and the right holder shortly thereafter discovering that his or her work was being licensed.

The IPO has partially taken this concern on board but only to the extent that the flow chart now identifies the possibility of a right holder coming forward when the application is placed on the register, but before the licence has been granted. If that were to happen, the licence would not be granted under the terms of the scheme at all. It would be up to the right holder to determine whether a licence should be granted. However, the IPO has not been willing to allow for any specific period to elapse before a registered licence came into force. That is worth considering.