Artistic Content: Copyright Protection

Lord Fox Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

Of course, my noble friend makes a very important point. As I said earlier, we have one of the strongest copyright protection frameworks in the world. Many of these are subject to international agreements, such as the TRIPS agreement. We will continue to engage in international fora and make sure that artists and creators have protection for their works.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, a number of different ministries have commented on this, as my noble friend pointed out, including BEIS and DCMS. Am I to conclude from the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, is speaking to this that BEIS will be accountable for this and will be the ministry that makes sure that people—including, I should say, people in my family—who work in this industry get paid? If they do not, they need to know who is accountable.

[Lord Callanan]

Yes, BEIS is responsible for intellectual property and copyright, but of course there is considerable input from DCMS concerning the creative industries. DCMS is taking forward a creative industries forum and various round tables with content providers and social media platforms, et cetera. So it lies across the two departments.