Intellectual Property (Hargreaves Report)

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Eric Joyce

Thursday 7th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Eric Joyce]

That is absolutely fascinating. I think Tony Blair might have put the original up in one of his many houses. Perhaps he has put one up in each. I will not continue to wax rhapsodic, as I was late for the start of the debate.

Let me turn briefly to the internet service providers. There are hundreds of thousands of ISPs, many of which are small and fill a niche. In the UK, there are lots of ISPs serving local geographical areas. That may seem counter-intuitive, but that is the way it is. They provide a good service in their niche market. I am not saying, “Yah-boo sucks to all the creators and the ISPs are all fabulous.” However, we tend to forget that ISPs have to invest a great deal of money in infrastructure. We all want superfast broadband, but if we are not careful we could end up loading costs on to ISPs and slow down the superfast future that we all want. It is not the case that Google commands everybody and fair use will be next. As the hon. Member for Hove has said, fair use has essentially been rejected by Hargreaves, but I am sure that that will not happen in the UK. I understand that it was primarily a legal argument that did not fit terribly well into the European legal structure.

Let me just blow the trumpet for ISPs. The sector is not terribly big or sexy, and we understandably tend to speak a lot about our success in the music industry. However, the corporate debate goes much wider than the music industry. For instance, it involves software, as I have mentioned. There are all sorts of creative responses in the movie industry. We can see release dates being brought closer together, so that people are less likely to pirate. Often, if new technological solutions, creative ideas or new ways of selling a product are found, problems can be solved.

In his report, Hargreaves emphasises that enforcement and education have a limited effect. Instead, he says we need to find new ways of facilitating new creative ideas. He recommends the creation of a digital copyright exchange. I am not sure exactly how it will work and do not think that it will necessarily involve compulsion, but there are some interesting debates around it. The report states:

“Government should pursue an integrated approach based upon enforcement, education and, crucially, measures to strengthen and grow legitimate markets in copyright and other IP protected fields.”

That goes to the heart of what Hargreaves has tried to do. It is not perfect, but it recognises that we can make incremental steps at this stage. I hope that the idea does not get knocked off track for some technical reason that we cannot get round.

Hon. Members spoke at length with Professor Hargreaves, who made himself and his team available to them. I deduce that he and his team are a little concerned that the whole thing will be knocked off track by heavy lobbying. The hon. Member for Northampton South perfectly captured the problem. We recognise that we need to change; we accept what Hargreaves recommends as sound common sense; and we can get the copyright laws that we need not only now but for things that might be coming along in the future.

[Dr Coffey]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman has said about Professor Hargreaves and about his concern that everything might be put to one side. As my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) said earlier, if he had broadened the panel to include not only academics and intellectual property officers but people from the industry, he might have had a more willing audience.

[Eric Joyce]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. I am always up for broadening the membership of panels. I did not select the panel. She may well be right. I do not deny that it was a tightly focused group. We all have small and medium-sized businesses in our communities, and we all get lobbied by the Federation of Small Businesses. I often get lobbied by small businesses that say that the corporate holders are too aggressive in pursuing their rights and interests. I am not sure what I feel about that, but the hon. Lady is right in what she says.

In conclusion—I was almost at my peroration before the hon. Lady intervened—Professor Hargreaves has produced a pretty good piece of work. It is not perfect, but it recommends good incremental steps forward. We need to reflect on the fact that ISPs are being relied on to contribute greatly to the roll-out of superfast broadband. We all want that. It is coming. When is it going to come? We will see what it looks like when it comes. This report is a small but significant part of the chain.