My Lords, I should like to speak to Amendment 84AF, to which I have added my name. I spoke at some length in Committee on the extended collective licensing measures in Clause 69, and I made it clear then that I do not like the principle of ECL. I cannot see how it materially benefits the UK and it will bring uncertainty by not being truly voluntary.
I believe—and I have said so previously—that such a scheme should be opt-in, rather than opt-out, whereby rights holders who want to license their content through others can do so. However, I welcome the Minister’s assurances thus far that safeguards to such a scheme are vital, but—I echo the words of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones—the safeguards should be included in the Bill, not left to secondary legislation. If the Government are backing ECL because it works in the Nordic countries, then why not follow the Nordic lead and put the necessary safeguards in the primary legislation? Whoever may benefit from such a scheme can then benefit, and whoever feels threatened by it will have some comfort in knowing that the Government have protected the rights of rights holders.
As I said on an amendment on Report last week, China has just announced that it will implement ECL in its copyright law and has said that the details will be in regulations yet to be published. Where have we heard that before? The UK Government will not be in a position to demand appropriate safeguards for licensing of UK copyrights by ECL in China if we do not have them in our own legislation, as the Nordic countries do, nor will UK rights holders or their representative bodies be in a strong position to safeguard UK rights abused by ECLs in foreign countries if the UK’s own statute lacks the necessary safeguards. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and I have tabled a series of amendments to this clause which does just that, putting into statute the very safeguards that the Minister himself has articulated.
Again, I urge my noble friend the Minister to accept these amendments, and avoid a situation in which companies can seize the intellectual property of others and license it on their own terms.
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