My Lords, the novelist Edith Wharton has a character in one of her early stories, a woman novelist, who discusses with her former lover what should be done with their love letters. She says:
“A keen sense of copyright is my nearest approach to an emotion”.
Noble Lords may be feeling rather similar by this stage of the proceedings. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate—my noble friends Lady Blackstone, Lord Howie of Troon and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, as well as the noble Earl, Lord Erroll—for their very helpful contributions.
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I am very disappointed indeed with the Minister’s reply. I have appreciated his willingness to meet me formally and informally, and I am sure that he understands the arguments that I am putting forward. However, what is frustrating is that in my speech I anticipated each argument that he put forward. There is no reason to suppose that orphan works would undercut the market, whatever the market may be, for whatever apparently comparable material. He did not illustrate how that might work, and I find it hard to imagine why that should be the case. He said that the tariff needs to be equivalent, but we are talking about a multiplicity of different sorts of material. It is very hard to see how a scale of tariff can be used to match things that come up as orphan works with things that are constantly appearing anew as commercial copyright material. He said that the unclaimed fees could be used for several purposes. No doubt they would be
good purposes, and it is comforting to an extent that they are not to disappear into the maw of the Treasury, or of the general Exchequer, but he did not deal with the point that the unclaimed fees would amass to a very large amount of money indeed, even if, as he assured us, the fee per item would be minimal, simply because of the volume of this material. I was entirely unpersuaded by his arguments.
I was also very disappointed that the Minister chose not to respond to the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara that we might meet between now and Third Reading to see whether we can still achieve a meeting of minds and an amendment that satisfies the legitimate concerns of all those who are active and involved in this area. If the Minister is prepared to say, even now, that he will give a clear-cut commitment to hold meetings with a view to achieving an amendment that satisfies the interests and proper concerns of the great cultural institutions of this country, I will be happy not to press my amendment today. I give him the opportunity to make that commitment if he is willing to do so, but if he is not willing to try once more to see whether reasonable people can come to a sensible and practical agreement on this, I wish to test the opinion of the House.