Pete Wishart
Main Page: Pete Wishart (Scottish National Party - Perth and Kinross-shire)(10 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Willetts
My hon. Friend speaks very well on behalf of Dyson in his constituency. I recently met representatives of Dyson. They have a very important concern, which I hope we will be able to address in Committee.
I was paying tribute to ACID’s efforts. Following consideration and consultation, one of the central proposals in the Bill is to introduce a criminal sanction for those who set out intentionally to copy a design in the course of business. That will give design the same protection, in broad terms, as trade marks and copyright. One partner of a leading intellectual property law firm recently described the sanction as “evolution not revolution”, and the proposed changes as “sensible and pragmatic”.
I recently met one SME from Sheffield—I think it is located in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), whom I do not see in his place—and the representative of Burgon and Ball told me that it had to cope with 20 civil disputes over alleged design infringements in a period of two years. This problem will have been raised with Members on both sides of the House by SMEs active in the design sector. The problems caused by such design infringements impose an unmanageable financial burden on some of our most innovative small companies. We believe that other means of redress should be available, and the introduction of criminal sanctions will, for the first time, enable small design companies to bring the issue of copying to the relevant enforcement agency.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
The Minister accurately sums up the view of Anti-Copying in Design when it comes to registered design rights, but he will have seen its concern about the need for the Bill to cover unregistered design rights, given that the vast majority of designs are unregistered. Will he consider that as the Bill is debated in Committee?
Mr Willetts
I will, of course, consider all these issues as the Bill is debated in Committee. I think we have got the balance broadly correct on that issue, but I am happy to consider it further in Committee.
Mr Wright
My hon. Friend makes an important point. There is a second consideration. We might have the best framework in the world, but if it is not enforced properly, it is largely redundant. We need to ensure that enforcement is maintained.
It is important to retain our position as No. 1 in the world for IP. We should also reinforce the need to avoid needlessly tinkering with the system. The House will agree that IP needs to adapt to take account of changing circumstances such as globalisation; growing collaboration across firms; and new, often disruptive, technologies such as 3D printing and digitisation. All of those bring many challenges. However, it is also important to be mindful of avoiding changes that undermine business certainty and thereby deter investment and innovation.
It is in that context that the House considers the Bill, which is brief and flimsy. It gives the impression of being the remnants of a much larger piece of legislation—perhaps it is the remnants of the much vaunted but hitherto unseen communications Bill. That reinforces the notion that the Government do not have a strong and clear vision on how to proceed with IP, leaving industry with uncertainty. Ministers could be accused of tinkering and making piecemeal changes that could undermine confidence and investment in our economy.
In many respects, the Government are continuing the approach they used last year with the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, several sections of which are devoted to IP and copyright. They were not discussed with stakeholders, and subsequently there was much alarm within the creative industries. The Act deterred investment in the UK economy. We should avoid that when possible.
As the Minister has said, the Bill is meant to simplify and to provide greater clarity and certainty on the IP framework, but it often does not do so. For example, the Government’s recent design consultation asked whether the Registered Designs Act 1949 should be amended by providing greater consistency between joint ownership provisions for both registered and unregistered designs. All or most respondents to the consultation agreed with the move to greater clarity and consistency in principle, but for whatever reason the Government have decided not to change the law in that regard.
Clause 13, to which I will return, has been mentioned a number of times. It provides a significantly different approach to registered and unregistered design rights. It is as if the Government are saying, “We like consistency in certain areas, but not in others,” which merely provides inconsistency by a different name. The measure is a new inconsistency, so it provides greater complexity and subsequent uncertainty to business. We will want to scrutinise the Government on those inconsistencies in Committee.
That said, much in this slight Bill is to be commended, and the Opposition will not oppose it this evening. For example, clause 8 is welcome. It allows UK implementation of The Hague agreement, which allows for the protection of design rights throughout the EU with a single application rather than multiple applications in each country. That should help small and medium-sized firms to cut down on costs.
I am pleased that, in another place, the Government moved away from implementing that measure via the negative procedure, and that they listened to my noble Friends on the Opposition Front Bench and the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and moved to the affirmative procedure. I hope that that listening exercise will continue in Committee.
Clause 17 enables the establishment in the UK of the unified patent court. The use of the court throughout Europe will provide a consistent and welcome framework in participating European country. It is particularly pleasing for the UK economy that part of the court will be based in London, with the prospect of another part of the country—perhaps Hartlepool—being the location for a second part. I commend the Prime Minister, good European that he is, for helping to secure that.
Pete Wishart
One place where one of these divisional courts will not be—so far—is in Scotland. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in ensuring that the Bill is amended so that the Court of Session can continue the centuries-long tradition of ruling on patent cases in Scotland? Without that, the extra costs and burdens on Scottish businesses will be intolerable.
Mr Wright
When I was reading Hansard from another place on this matter, many noble Lords mentioned the importance of Scotland as a possible second area. It would be useful in Committee to discuss that and, possibly, the wider point of whether independence for Scotland would help to produce that—or otherwise, as I would suspect.
Exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for continuing programmes of research, as contained in clause 20, will maintain UK universities’ excellent reputation around the world for research, without, as I think the Minister said, forcing institutions to make public research without its being completed or subject to peer review. That is also to be welcomed. There are certain provisions, however, that will need to be looked at closely in Committee, and which might have a detrimental effect on UK-based innovation. The Minister mentioned this point, and I was pleased with his accommodating remarks on the possibility of amendments in Committee. This is a concern for UK-based manufacturing.
Clause 3 extends the qualification of unregistered design rights to the functional designs of companies incorporated in countries that do not offer reciprocal protection for UK functional designs. The Minister mentioned the IP Federation, which has been particularly strong on this point. It stated:
“Under the changes proposed in Clause 3 of the IP Bill, parity no longer exists and UK manufacturers are strategically disadvantaged with additional hurdles being introduced to the manufacture of functional designs in the UK. This will directly impact those engaged in general engineering because of the importance of functional designs which are covered by UK UDR.”
It went on to state:
“The manufacturing facilities of both small and large UK-based engineering companies will be seriously impaired by extending UK UDR to foreign corporate entities. Careful consideration would need to be given to the location of manufacturing facilities as the manufacture of functional articles in the UK will be inhibited. It would become more attractive to move design and manufacturing offshore and to commercially source functional designs from businesses outside of the UK where the copying of functional designs is lawful.”
It is important for the rebalancing of the economy that we in this House do nothing that adversely affects high-value manufacturing in this country. Clause 3, as currently drafted, poses a threat to investment and manufacturing capability in the UK, and could put us at a competitive disadvantage with other parts of the world when considering manufacturing locations. That cannot be right. I am pleased with what the Minister has said. We will examine this matter closely in Committee. I hope we can work together to introduce amendments that do not inhibit UK-based manufacturing.
As has been said, the most contentious part of the Bill is clause 13, which brings into law criminal sanctions for deliberate infringement of registered designs. I think that this will take up a significant part of our deliberations in Committee. On the one hand, as I think I mentioned earlier in my remarks, the Opposition strongly believe in the principle that a person who has created, invented or designed something should derive some protection of ownership in law, together with the right to derive benefit from that creation, invention or design, and that appropriate and proportionate sanctions should be put in law to assert that legal right. If criminal sanctions exist for copyright or trademarks, why not for design, especially when the future UK economy will rely so heavily on innovative design? This is a strong argument, especially when there is already similar protection in other parts of the IP framework, such as for copyright or trademarks. However, the introduction of criminal sanctions with the prospect of 10 years’ imprisonment is a serious matter and must be considered closely by the House.
We will be probing the Government in Committee on whether clause 13 is appropriate and proportionate, whether it would act as a sufficient deterrent to those who deliberately infringe designs—steal, for want of a better term—or whether it would unfairly criminalise those who accidentally or inadvertently copy a design. In another place, the Minister said the arguments were finely balanced. We need to ensure that that balance is well drafted in the Bill. Clause 13 is opposed by many stakeholders working in this field, such as the IP Federation, the Intellectual Property Bar Association, the City of London Law Society, the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, and a number of experts and specialists, including Sir James Dyson, as we heard from the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), and the Ministry of Defence.
As I said, we will consider this matter closely in Committee, but what causes me most concern about clause 13 is that, as several stakeholders have stated, criminalisation, with the prospect of up to 10 years’ imprisonment, might have a “chilling effect” on innovation. New products might not come to market or benefit the UK economy because people are reluctant to risk a criminal trial and 10 years’ imprisonment. I suspect that in Committee we will deliberate at length about the nature of innovation—whether there are great leaps forward or whether innovation is undertaken by swinging from tree to tree in the jungle or, to switch my metaphor, by standing on the shoulders of giants. We need to be careful to strike the right balance in order to protect designers’ creativity and ingenuity while avoiding the risk that no further product improvements will be made through adaptation.
There is a second concern with clause 13 that I think the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has mentioned. If the purpose of the Bill is to simplify and make consistent the patchwork, as Hargreaves calls it, of differing rights, I do not see why registered designs should be subject to criminal sanctions, but unregistered designs should not be. During the passage of the Bill in another place, the Government could not provide a logical or rational explanation for that inconsistency. In Committee in another place, the Minister stated quite bluntly:
“The introduction of criminal sanctions for unregistered rights could lead to a negative effect on business and innovation.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 June 2013; Vol. 745, c. GC409.]
If that is the case, why are registered designs different? The Minister also said that SMEs
“do not tend to register their designs”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 June 2013; Vol. 745, c. GC395.]
It is difficult to see, therefore, how the Government’s proposals in this part of the Bill will strengthen innovation, prevent infringement for the vast proportion of designs in this country and deter exploitation of small and micro-firms by perhaps more unscrupulous businesses. Registered designs do not imply approval or confer an inflated status, so there is no possible legal justification to treat them differently in this regard.
Many UK businesses clearly see merit in the UK unregistered design right, which helps their competitiveness and commercial position. Why, then, should that right not be protected through criminal sanctions when the Government propose that for unregistered designs? I cannot see anything that would prevent companies from identifying unregistered designs, registering those designs for themselves and then stating to the original designer, “You’ve infringed our registered design. We will bring a criminal case against you for deliberately copying our registered design and you may go to prison for 10 years unless you pay us a large fee or assign the rights of the design over to us to exploit anyway.” How does that protect small and micro-firms or help to promote innovation? I do not think that the Government have offered an adequate explanation for this discrepancy, so we will want to scrutinise it further in Committee.
I think the whole House is united in thinking that a strong and consistent framework for intellectual property is essential if the UK economy is to prosper and thrive in the 21st century. A balance is needed to ensure that the IP regime is consistent and provides certainty, while adapting to rapidly changing economic and technological developments. A balance is also needed between protecting the rights of creators and innovators and not discouraging further innovation or possibly disrupting entrepreneurs, companies and technologies. We hope to work closely and constructively with the Government in Committee to strike those balances and ensure that the UK economy can thrive in the modern world.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I also belatedly welcome you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to the Chair. The appointment was perhaps a loss to the no campaign on the constitutional question, but one that we welcome.
I generally welcome the Bill. I have managed to speak in most of the debates on IP since becoming a Member of Parliament, and I have had the great pleasure of introducing a couple of them, but this is the first time in those 13 years that we have had a Bill dedicated to it. It gives us an incredible opportunity to assess the value of IP-supported business and industry to the economy. IP makes a fantastic contribution—4.3% of our GDP, as the Minister said.
Mr Sutcliffe
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the importance of IP rights. Does he agree that there is a need to educate most of the country, including young people, about the value and importance of IP rights?
Pete Wishart
The hon. Gentleman is spot on. So much more could be done through educational initiatives. I have seen some important work being done. I have visited schools and seen schoolchildren trade marking their work with the little copyright symbol. They were starting to appreciate that what they produce, even if it is just a drawing, has an intrinsic intellectual value. If we can get across the message that intellectual property is as important as a property right, and if we can encourage that culture, we will be making great strides forward.
It has been reported in recent weeks that the creative sector has grown by 8.6% in recent years, compared with growth of only 0.7% in the general economy. It is the UK’s fastest growing sector and is worth around £71 billion a year. As the Culture Secretary has said, so much of our cultural and creative endeavour rests on important intellectual property rights, which is absolutely spot on. It is the creative industries that are growing us out of recession. Imagine growing our economy on the back of the creativity, talent and imagination of the people of this country. What a fantastic way to grow our economy. That is why it is so important that we get the intellectual framework right.
We have not done too much that is wrong over the past 10 years. The UK remains a leader. We are in the top three countries in practically every cultural discipline, whether music, film, television, publishing or whatever. We must be doing something right. It also comes naturally to people in these isles; we are just naturally creative. That is reflected in the great output we have seen over hundreds of years, in our contribution to invention, talent and creativity. We get something right and we are able to protect it, so we have to be very careful as we progress with intellectual property rights. We tamper with that at our peril. We have to be careful about how we progress.
The genesis of the Bill was in November 2010, when the Prime Minister made his great “Googlesburg” address. I remember coming home one evening and being unable to believe what I was seeing on the television: a UK Prime Minister talking about intellectual property. It was the first time I had seen a UK Prime Minister take an interest in intellectual property, which was great. I was also interested in what he was saying, because I wondered what on earth he was going on about. His basic premise seemed to be that we would never see a Google emerge in the UK because of our restrictive intellectual property laws and copyright framework. He did not say whether it would be a good thing to have a UK Google. The clear thing he said was that we would not be able to create a Google in the UK, and he also said something about our IP rules being restrictive and that they needed to be fixed.
I do not know who was advising the Prime Minister at the time, but it was certainly not the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley), who is now his adviser, because I know that the hon. Gentleman would never advise him to say such nonsense about the need for a Google to emerge in the UK—he would have advised him to say something much more sensible and measured. Was there perhaps somebody close to Google working at No. 10? Was somebody in a personal relationship with somebody working at No. 10 and advising the Prime Minister? I will leave that question hanging. Thank goodness the hon. Member for Hove is now advising him much more sensibly on such matters. [Interruption.] I see the Whip, the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), nodding her head. I will return to Google later, because there are lots of important things to be said about that. We have to understand what that has all been underpinned by and the impact and damage that type of process is having.
The Prime Minister then dispatched Ian Hargreaves to solve the Google conundrum. Ian Hargreaves rightly dumped all the Google nonsense as soon as he could. He went to the United States to see if he could introduce the American system of fair use into UK law. When he was prohibited from doing so because of very sensible European legislation, he moved on to the substance of his review by looking at IP’s economic contribution. He came up with 10 recommendations—some good, some bad, some indifferent and some repetitive—that the Government were minded to accept.
Since then, throughout the Hargreaves process, we have been in the business of legislating for those 10 recommendations. Some have required primary legislation, such as the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, and some have required secondary legislation. We are yet to see the statutory instruments, because the Hargreaves process has not concluded. We have this Bill and the SIs are coming forward. One thing that I would like the Minister to tell us—he can intervene now or answer when he responds—is what on earth is happening with the SIs for the rest of the copyright exceptions. He will probably say that they are still with parliamentary counsel and that they are not yet ready to be presented. Well, he had better get a move on, because he only has until March to do it.
I would like to hear about the process for introducing the SIs and what we should expect. I strongly suggest—several Members have said this several times to various Ministers—that we have separate SIs for each of the copyright exceptions. As a matter of principle, it is right and proper that we should be able to assess each of the exceptions individually. It would be unacceptable to bundle them together on a “take it or leave it” basis, particularly the new exceptions, and there are some really important ones, such as parody, copying and all the other ones—I cannot remember what they are, but the Minister knows what I mean. We have to ensure that we see them separately and debate them properly when they come through.
We are getting close to the end of the Hargreaves process. Has it been good? Yes, some of it has been all right. The digital copyright exchange is fantastic—a great little innovation. That part of the process has worked. However, there is a lot of nonsense—stuff that we did not need. In fact, great unhappiness has been caused among many people who represent our creative industries, because when they came to the Government stating their strong concerns about some aspects of Hargreaves they were arrogantly dismissed as though they—the people who have built the success of the industry—did not understand the environment they were working in and the Government or Hargreaves knew it better. There was a great deal of dissatisfaction among people who felt out of sorts with the way the Government went about this business. I hope that if we have a process such as this in future we will be able to look at things much more circumspectly and take everybody with us as we go forward.
I want to make a few remarks about how the Bill has been handled. It is an absolute disgrace that the House of Lords looked at this matter first: it should have been elected Members in this House. Given the value of the role that IP plays in industry and business, we should have considered it first, and if the House of Lords then wanted to look at it and suggest amendments and things we should reconsider, that would have been absolutely fine. Something as important as intellectual property and its contribution to the economy should have been handled first by directly elected Members rather than the House of Lords, talented and well respected as some of its Members may be. It should have been our right and our responsibility.
The Minister responsible for IP is an unelected Lord himself. The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) was spot on in his comments. The Minister is anonymous. Not even the Prime Minister could remember his name, so what chance have the rest of us got? It is great that the Minister for Universities and Science is here—who better to have dealing with a Bill on intellectual property than a Minister with a multiplicity of brains?—but the real IP Minister should be taking this Bill forward and held accountable through the questioning of this House’s directly elected Members.
That unelected Lord is a Minister in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which is responsible for the Intellectual Property Office despite the fact that the IPO deals with matters looked after by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. All the disciplines that the IPO manages and supports are covered by the DCMS, but the IPO is covered by BIS. Is anything as ridiculous as that? Surely we should be trying to bring this together, as suggested by the all-party intellectual property group. I see some of my fellow officers here; the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge is its secretary. DCMS would be the perfect fit for the IPO in ensuring that it could work beside all the industries it is there to support. I hope we can resolve this issue.
The all-party group also suggested that we should have an IP champion. If this is going to work cross-departmentally, we need somebody out there banging the drum for IP-supported business and industry. That is the great forgotten in all this. There are people here who are passionate about IP and recognise its value and importance, but the place should be mobbed—full to the gunwales. This is about billions of pounds and we have to get it right. The problem is that we have an anonymous Minister in a Department that does not serve the industry. We must get this fixed. We should make the hon. Member for Hove our IP champion—an IP tsar who is out there getting things sorted out. He was right to mention the IP tsar in the United States, who is doing a fantastic job. When the all-party group met her, we were all very impressed with the power and clout she has on Capitol Hill to get things done. That is what we need in this country—somebody who will work cross-departmentally to get things resolved and make sure that we are able to take this key matter forward.
On the Bill itself, I do not want to be repetitive—[Interruption.] Come on, let me get this properly into context. We have heard all about the sorts of things that the Bill does. It is great that it covers registered design rights—the great forgotten IP right. It is fantastic that ACID has at last got its way and that this will now be covered by criminal infringement provisions, but it is totally wrong that unregistered designs are not covered too. In the House of Lords there was a big debate about this on clause 13. There has also been a debate within the industry whereby a consensus has developed that if we are to pursue the idea of registered design rights, unregistered design rights must be included. The vast majority of people who work in the design industry are in small or micro-businesses with probably fewer than four people working for them, and they cannot spend so much time making sure that things are registered. We must get this resolved.
Bob Stewart
I have listened carefully to the arguments about unregistered designs, and I wonder how this matter can be policed. How will that be possible when no one has actually said “This is my design” and someone has agreed with them? That is really worrying.
Pete Wishart
ACID has built up a database of unregistered designs, and tens of thousands of people have registered with it. If that can be achieved by a small organisation such as ACID, which runs so efficiently and effectively with Dids Macdonald and her very small staff, surely the UK Government can do likewise, and that is what we are asking them to do. It is absolutely right to make sure that our design industry is properly looked after in this regard. I welcome any progress on patents and designs, but we need decisive leadership, not another piecemeal Bill that does the absolute minimum that is required.
I did not expect to be raising a constitutional point in relation to these issues, but the unified European patent court could seriously affect Scotland’s ability to judge and make rulings on patent issues within Scotland. As the Minister knows, under the new European regime every member state is allowed four divisional courts. We know there is going to be one in London, because the Government have said so, but we do not know where the other three will be—if there are three; they have not said how many they have chosen to have. One of them has to be in Scotland. We cannot have our economy suffering because our inventors and creators in small businesses have to leave their jurisdiction to secure justice and satisfaction elsewhere in the UK or further abroad. After centuries of looking after these issues, this ability must be available to the Scottish judiciary. The Minister has probably seen the letters from the Law Society of Scotland and the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, who are very worried that we could be diminishing or getting rid of not just decades but centuries of experience in dealing with patents according to Scots law. We must make sure that the Court of Session in Edinburgh becomes one of the divisional courts of the new unified court.
Mr Willetts
Several Members have raised this issue. As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, London will be one of the divisions. How many divisions there are and where they are will depend on the pattern of need and demand. We absolutely understand the importance of accessibility to these services across Scotland. We are working closely with the devolved Administrations and court services in Scotland and in Northern Ireland. I cannot give him the assurance he is asking for today, but as we see the pattern of demand emerge, and if we have good conversations, then what he seeks is very possible.
Pete Wishart
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for saying that; it does bring a degree of comfort. I recognise that there is an attempt to try to resolve this matter. He clearly recognises that it is a huge issue for us that has to be resolved. The whole Scottish legal establishment is united in calling for that. I welcome what he said and hope that as we take the Bill through we will hear more about it and can ensure that the Scottish courts are satisfied and that we do not lose their centuries of experience in dealing with patent issues.
I want to say a few words about clause 21, which will require the Secretary of State to report on the activities of the IPO and how it has supported innovation and growth in the United Kingdom. I do not think any Member would argue against that. It is a very positive step that provides a bit of a focus for the IPO’s activities. However, any measure must be quantified, and it must include some reference to how those activities have supported IP-dependent businesses and IP rights.
One major battle throughout the Hargreaves process was all the stuff about economic evidence. I remember when the creative industries used to present evidence to us. The work done by the creative industries to inform the Government about their activities—it was sometimes commissioned by the Government—was arrogantly dismissed by Hargreaves as “lobbynomics”. However, the Intellectual Property Office made some heroic assumptions to support its copyright exceptions. It said that if all 10 of Hargreaves’s recommendations were introduced it would make a difference of between 0.6% and 0.9% of GDP. Come on! It expected us to believe that. It therefore works both ways.
Some of the other heroic assumptions underpinning copyright exceptions were totally unbelievable. We in the all-party group on intellectual property asked IPO officers to come in and explain them, and we found what they said totally unsatisfactory. The annual report must therefore be credible and robust, and it must respect everybody in the sector. The Government should not just leave it to the Intellectual Property Office to concoct some figures and expect us to be happy and satisfied with them. At some point, we will have to be able to challenge the assumptions and look at what underlies them, because we cannot have some of the nonsensical economic assumptions that we had in the past.
Lastly, I want to return to Google. This all started with Google, did it not? It was kicked off by the “Googlesburg” address, but let us try to turn that on its head. The issue was all about whether a Google could emerge in the UK because of restrictive intellectual property practices. What about looking at Google itself? It is a digital behemoth—there is nothing bigger in the digital world—and the gatekeeper for all our content industries. Nothing happens without Google, and nothing can go through its prism without satisfying it in some way. It distorts the digital market, and it is damn good at ensuring that it keeps its predominant position. All its activities are about maintaining its predominant, almost monopoly position as the gatekeeper of content. It produces no content of its own—not a bit—but, yet again, the question all comes down to how content is measured and assessed.
Helen Goodman
As a matter of fact, what the hon. Gentleman says about Google not producing its own content is inaccurate. It would strengthen his argument if he acknowledged that it produces content—for example, maps. He is probably aware that the European Commission is now looking at its uncompetitive behaviour in putting its own products above others in the search engine.
Pete Wishart
I was perhaps a tad too harsh in relation to Google producing some of its content. Yes, it copies maps, puts them up and makes sure that people can access them, but it produces none of what we understand and appreciate as content, whether drama, film, television or whatever. All it does is act as a platform, which is the only platform that people use.
At some time, this Government must have a proper look at the almost monopoly status of this huge, multinational, non-UK business and ask whether it is good for our content industries. I have a sneaking feeling that it is not. I have seen the evidence from the British Phonographic Industry. It sent 50 million notices to Google asking it to take down links to illegal— I emphasise, illegal—sites. Google should not be doing that. What on earth is going on if it receives 50 million requests to take down links to illegal sites?
If hon. Members run Google searches for MP3 downloads for the top 20 singles or albums from the whole of November, on average 77% of first-page search results for singles and 64% of those for albums will direct them to illegal sites. Is that not incredible? If they put in the name of a band to find some of its musical content, they will be directed to an illegal site through Google. What on earth is going on? As the BPI has said, Google’s monopoly leads consumers into
“a murky underworld of unlicensed sites, where they may break the law…because it persistently ranks such sites above trusted legal services when consumers search for music to download.”
It is time to call in the Competition Commission: we cannot continue to allow Google to be the gateway to content industries when they do them so much damage.
I met and had a fantastic chat with the Featured Artists Coalition just before Christmas. It has represented some of our greatest pop stars over the past 50 years—people who have made millions of pounds for the UK economy and given us great entertainment throughout those years. One of its spokespeople, Crispin Hunt, perfectly summed up the situation when he said:
“A brilliant new band that I recently worked with has just been dropped by their label because their debut EP sold barely 4,000 copies. Yet the number one site on a Google Search for the same EP boasts of 23,000 illegal downloads…then directs me to an online brothel, next to an advert for Nissan as I rip the tunes. What more do I need to say?”
What more, indeed, need he say before something is done about the monopoly status of Google?
I hope that now we are bringing the Hargreaves process to its conclusion, we will start to consider how people access content, how it is distributed and how that distribution distorts the market, as well as how to ensure that our artists, inventors and creators are properly rewarded for their work. I hope to serve on the Public Bill Committee as there are several outstanding issues that need to be considered, and I look forward to the Minister’s response. He has those two brains, so he can get thinking on the Intellectual Property Bill, and I hope that his two brains will be in the mood to accept some helpful amendments as we try to improve it and to secure satisfaction for our creative industries and our artist creators.
The Bill is adequate and piecemeal, but it is the only one we have, so let us get this done. Let us finish the Hargreaves process and move on to the substantial and real work that we need to do to ensure that this country remains at the top of all cultural and artistic disciplines as we go into the next decade.