Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Viscount Colville of Culross and Baroness Buscombe

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I voice my admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and his dogged determination to get Section 73 of the copyright Act repealed, and I am grateful to the Government for including its repeal in the Bill. Their response to the technical consultation seems to mean that it will be repealed immediately, but I too would like the Minister to assure us that it will be.

[Baroness Buscombe]

In Committee, and again here today, noble Lords have expressed their desire to see a swift repeal of Section 73. As I set out in Committee, the Government, through the Intellectual Property Office, have consulted on the technical aspects of the repeal, including on the question of a transition period, and committed to returning to this issue on Report following the publication of the government response to the consultation. The IPO published the Government’s response to the technical consultation on 10 February. In summary, the responses did not see the need for creating a new rights clearance mechanism and were in favour of no or a very short transition period in connection with the repeal of Section 73. The Government agree with that view.

I therefore confirm to the House that Section 73 will be repealed without a transitional period and that no compulsory structure for licensing needs to be introduced. In coming to the decision not to have a transition period, the Government considered that the intention to repeal Section 73 was announced in summer 2015. The industry has therefore had plenty of time to prepare for the repeal. There is also the ongoing and pressing issue of online service providers continuing to rely on the Section 73 exception to permit the streaming of PSB content over the internet without seeking the necessary permissions or paying any licence fees. This can impact not only the copyright owners in the broadcast but the underlying copyright owners in the content carried within the broadcast itself. The Government regarded the resulting financial loss to the affected parties as an important driver for a swift repeal. The repeal will become effective on a date to be appointed by statutory instrument after Royal Assent is received for the Bill. I confirm that the Government will commence repeal without delay before the Summer Recess.

On Amendment 21, the IPO consultation also looked into the position of underlying rights holders in PSB content, such as musicians and scriptwriters, and whether new rights clearance mechanisms needed to be introduced. It concluded that there are already extensive commercial rights agreements in place between underlying rights holders, broadcasters and the platforms, and that these will be capable of factoring in the new rights, which will be reactivated following the repeal of Section 73.

Underlying rights holders already contract, on terms acceptable to them, with broadcasters and platforms in respect of rights that are not currently exempted by Section 73, such as underlying rights in non-PSB content and in programmes transmitted on all other non-cable platforms. As such, we do not think that statutory intervention in the manner proposed in the amendment is necessary.

In response to the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I want to make it clear that underlying rights holders already have in place rights agreements with broadcasters. Section 73 only ever applied to cable networks, so the value of underlying rights will have been factored in for transmission on all platforms.

I hope this explanation has assured the noble Lords that the purpose behind their amendment has been met. I therefore ask them to withdraw the amendment.