Draft Design Right, Artist’s Resale Right and Copyright (Amendment) Regulations 2023 Draft Intellectual Property (Exhaustion of Rights) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 General Committees

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mrs Cummins; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. I thank the Minister for his speech, and other Members for their contributions.

As we have heard, the first instrument modifies four distinct laws associated with intellectual property through the authority granted in the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023. The objective of the instrument is to implement various technical adjustments to align the UK’s IP framework with the objectives of the 2023 Act. The second instrument maintains existing exhaustion rights.

Intellectual property is the key to maintaining leading British industries, so it absolutely is important that we get it right, and I know that many people working in the creative industries and other sectors are looking to us in our discussions today. In the House, it is important that we are clear about what we do. We must give businesses and the public confidence and certainty that we are treating the issue appropriately.

We recognise that artists, creative industries and others make an enormous contribution to our economy and to society, as do scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs. Long-standing legal protections of IP, such as copyright and patent, are important and need to be recognised. More broadly, the intellectual property system exists to balance the interests of creators and the public, ensuring access to work. It is important that we strike the right balance, so I hope that, as we said earlier, we are able to work on a cross-party basis on this. I look forward to the Minister’s answering a couple of specific questions that I have for him.

Having spoken to people in the industries, I would like to ask the Minister to reassure them on a couple of points. The point about collective management organisations is interesting; it appears that the regulations would make them exempt from some requirements that they currently have to comply with. Will the Minister update me on the assessment his Department made that led to this decision? There has been some comment that the exemption may be unnecessary, and there are concerns that some CMOs might not pledge to use this exemption; new CMOs could exist in the future, which may further complicate this matter. Will the Minister write to me on that specific point about CMOs?

Additionally, will the Minister respond to the suggestion that rights holders can insist on transparency reports without legal obligations resting on CMOs to produce them? Some commentators believe that that may be unrealistic. I ask the Minister to write to me about that point as well.

Finally—this is another point about CMOs—the regulations are touted as a key solution to navigate the impact of AI on creatives and rights holders as we move forward to a permitted-but-paid system of AI training or to AI use on protected content. Will the Minister also write to me about that point?

Regulation of all the infrastructure of collective licensing in the UK is critical. We should not be pushing for more transparency without considering it very carefully and, where possible, without placing undue burdens on organisations. I look forward to colleagues’ contributions on these points and, indeed, on the aspect covered by the second statutory instrument.