Illegal Music Downloading

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

It is a great privilege to conduct the Adjournment debate under your watchful eye, Mr Speaker. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) on calling this important debate on the music industry and the illegal downloading of music. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) for his important contribution and my hon. Friends the Members for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) and for Hove (Mike Weatherley) for their important interventions.

During the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West, I felt that I was in the middle of a pub quiz. Let me rise to the challenge and say that the band that poured water over Lord Prescott was Chumbawamba and that Michael Jackson’s interrupter was Jarvis Cocker.

My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale is right to highlight the importance of the UK music industry. We are one of the few countries in the world that export music as a product, and the creative industries as whole form this country’s third largest export industry. For the first time since my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West was a young man—25 years ago—we have had three No. 1s in the United States, and Adele has just been nominated for six Grammys. My hon. Friend also referred to the success of the BRIT school, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and was brought into being not least by the efforts of Lord Baker.

We have a terrifically successful music industry as well as a tremendously successful film industry, which is enjoying one of its best years, certainly in the past 20 years. Indeed, for the past 20 weeks, a British film has been No. 1 at the box office. It is therefore incumbent on the Government to do all we can to protect the property of those who create music, films and the content of television programmes, which we all enjoy, so that they can earn a living from that. It is also important to stress that those who earn a living from music, film and television are not simply the highly successful people about whom we read in the newspapers and who may earn a significant amount, but many others, who earn relatively modest wages, whether they are technicians on films, people behind the mixing desk in a recording studio or session musicians working on a record. It is important that we work with them to support them and that we do all we can to reduce the prevalence of online piracy, which is basically theft of the property that those hard-working British people create.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale that we will never eradicate online piracy—such a goal would be foolish—but we can reduce it significantly.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

In Northern Ireland, we have had many unfortunate examples of organised crime groups who abuse the system, bring out copies and sell them for profit. Does the Minister feel that more can be done to ensure that that does not happen, not just in Northern Ireland but throughout the United Kingdom?

[Mr Vaizey]

Certainly, trading standards officers throughout the country work hard to counter the sale of physical counterfeit goods, but the real challenge, which the debate highlights, is the creation of the internet. It has obviously done much good for our economy and economies throughout the world, but it has also made it so much easier to pirate content digitally as well as sell counterfeit goods online.

My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale referred to the Creative Industries Council. The Government are delighted to have established the council to highlight the importance of the creative industries and to work on important issues such as access to finance and skills.

I also hold regular round tables with rights holders, be that in the music, film or television industries, and internet service providers and providers of search engines, to discuss common issues. The last round table that we held was attended by open rights groups as well, so hon. Members who are interested in what happened can find out from very public blogs.

As my hon. Friend pointed out, one of the best ways to combat illegal piracy is to provide legal services that are easy to access for consumers. The creation of Spotify; Deezer, which has recently launched worldwide; WE7, which is based here in the UK; and up to 70 other legal music services has provided consumers with a range of different opportunities to purchase music legally. Some ISPs, particularly BT, are looking very seriously at providing an easy-to-access music service to their customers, which would significantly reduce—I hope—the demand for illegal music.