Intellectual Property

Debate between Rehman Chishti and Pete Wishart

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Pete Wishart]

I would never suggest that there is a special relationship between No. 10 and certain key individuals in a company called Google, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reasserting the fact that I do not allege that today.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. Let me declare an interest at the outset. I have spoken to Allison Coleman, my former law tutor at the university of Wales, Aberystwyth, who advises the Welsh Government, the National Library of Wales, the National Museum Wales, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales and the People’s Collection Wales on access to orphan works. Her concern is that it is possible that national institutions with vast collections of works whose copyright owners are unknown will be charged a licence fee when they digitise those items and publish them on the web. As Hargreaves argues and almost everyone accepts, it is in the national interest that tremendous resources are held by our libraries, archives, museums and galleries. If those public institutions have to pay a fee to digitise each item—

[Rehman Chishti]

I will finish on that point, Mr Caton.

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman; he had a lot to say, and he said it eloquently and concisely. He is right, although unfortunately I do not have much time to discuss orphan works. He will know, however, about the great concern that exists. It is an issue that emerged in the Hargreaves report and seemed sensible and the right thing to do, although as soon as we started to unravel some of its complexities, we noticed difficulties such as the one that he described. He will also know about the great unhappiness about orphan works that currently exists, especially among photographers. The Government must consider such issues seriously, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing the matter to the attention of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention. I did not mean to come across as being so hard on the good professor. Yes, the hon. Lady is right: of course there are things in the Hargreaves review that have to be welcomed. She is right to mention the digital copyright exchange. Under the leadership of Richard Hooper, we now have an opportunity to make that a fit-for-purpose exchange, but that will have to come through hard work. It will have to come through proper discussion and consultation with the sector and the industry.

There are things in the review that could be made to work, but I am not going to resist considering some of the bonkers economics behind the creation of a DCE. What figure was given for the value of a DCE? Was it £4 billion? That is based on one report from Copenhagen Economics, which assumes a number of things coming together—European directives and European institutions. Once again, we are talking about something that could be useful, but the economic analysis is woeful.

[Rehman Chishti]

With regard to digitisation and access to orphan works, does the hon. Gentleman agree with this point? If public institutions must pay a fee to digitise each item, not many public institutions will be doing that, and therefore we have to review that overall aspect and say that if there is to be a fee, it must be minimal; otherwise it will be a case of no fee.

[Pete Wishart]

Again, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I can tell that he is passionate about the issues to do with orphan works, and he makes that point well. However, we must be careful about how we progress this agenda.

I want to touch on the exceptions that were not dealt with in the Hargreaves report. Some exceptions have just emerged as part of the IPO’s consultation and have caused immense concern, anxiety and grief. Those exceptions have to do with educational copying. This is a fundamental and very difficult issue. I am almost having to address this point to the IPO, because there is a sense that there is very little ministerial control when it comes to these things, but will the Minister please get in touch with these guys and get them to have a look at what they are doing with educational exceptions, because they are very dangerous? We could see no money whatever going to the people who provide educational materials, whether they are published works or programming—no money being collected on behalf of the people who produce that work for schools and other places of education. If there were to be no reward for people supplying that material to schools and colleges, why on earth would they do that? They will not do it for nothing. We are in real danger here. It is not only the authors and the people who make those programmes who will lose out. The schoolchildren and students will lose out, too, unless we resolve the issue, so will the Minister please examine that?