First, I will say how pleased I am that so many people have contributed today. What the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said is true: there is a greater number of noble Lords here than there has been for many of the copyright debates. I should quickly say that, although I did not agree with all the comments that were made, I greatly appreciate your Lordships’ presence.
As I said at the outset, this is a package of reasonable and common-sense changes to copyright exceptions, which will deliver significant benefits to the UK. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott of Foscote, will understand when I say that I will not be focusing on private copying, parody and pastiches, as we are not ready for those particular SIs at the moment.
I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, for his kind words. He spent quite a bit of time focusing on the consultation process. It is true that, rather unprecedentedly, we engaged with a great number of people across the spectrum, looking at the rights-holders and consumer-and-user ends of the copyright process. In my case, it involved more than 250 meetings, so what the noble Lord said is true: we really have engaged. I hope that, as the noble said, this has been helpful. He was also right to say that there comes a time when the consultation process, which has been extremely long, has to come to an end. I think, again, that he is right that we need to move forward with that.
A lot of questions were raised today; I hope that I can get through them all. I will address a couple of them to begin with. The first was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, who asked about the amendments to public guidance in relation to copying sheet music for exam use, which is an extremely interesting point. I thank him for his kind words and the recognition of the changes that the Government are making. We have welcomed the written submissions from some stakeholders setting out their thoughts on the guidance; these will be considered in due course.
The second point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Walton, who I notice is not in his place. I beg the noble Lord’s pardon; he is now in his place. He asked whether schools and universities would now not need any photocopying licences. He used the example of the ALCS to this effect. I can reassure him that schools and universities will still need to hold photocopying licences. It would not be right to allow schools to copy textbooks without payment in order to get them for free. Authors will still be properly remunerated. However, where works are not licensed, a teacher will be able to make photocopies without worrying about copyright infringement, so I hope that that clarifies the point.
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I will spend the majority of my time focusing on the questions raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott of Foscote, who essentially questioned the principles of the copyright exceptions. I will take some time to focus on what we have in mind and on the impact, which he also mentioned in his question. He will know that copyright exceptions have long been part of copyright law. They exist for many reasons, but essentially to ensure that the copyright framework both properly takes into account the public interest and balances the interests of rights holders and users, which I alluded to earlier.
The noble and learned Lord asked where the benefits will come from. Economic gains are likely to come mainly from cost savings through reducing the complexities of the copyright system and from new business creation. Therefore those cost savings will be to copyright owners as well as users of copyright, and should be of benefit to the whole economy. I will produce some figures in a moment to support that.
Many of the benefits that arise from these exceptions are due to savings in time, effort and money spent clearing minor uses of copyright materials. For example, if a museum or archive wishes to preserve a film in its collection by copying it, currently it needs to identify each of the owners of the copyright in the film, contact them, and ask for their permission to make the copy. That can be time-consuming and costly—and, if the copyright owner cannot be identified, it may be impossible. When the copyright owners are identified, they will usually agree to the copying, as it is reasonable, but it takes a disproportionate amount of time and effort to get to that point. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, eloquently made those points as well.
My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, asked me questions about the evidence base, and I will spend some time on that. The Hargreaves report on copyright exceptions estimated that between £0.4 billion and £2.6 billion would be added by 10 years from implementation. Those numbers were calculated by assuming that the growth benefits would not be realised immediately but would accrue over 10 years—hence the 10-year estimates.
At a conservative estimate, based on the Government’s impact assessments, the measures in the three SIs before us today are predicted, as I said, to benefit the UK by nearly £250 million over 10 years. The Government’s overall changes to copyright exceptions
will add £0.5 billion to the UK economy over 10 years at current prices, with additional benefits of £0.3 billion per year identified. That figure is broadly consistent with the Hargreaves review, although it is not directly comparable.
As was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, the Government have worked hard to ensure that the proposed changes are based on evidence. The impact assessments are based on the best evidence available, and were reviewed and validated by the independent Regulatory Policy Committee. I promised to provide some figures on that. For research education libraries and archives, it represents £222.9 million as regards the impact—which, as I said, is of benefit to the economy and largely the result of bureaucratic savings. Those are quantifiable and monetised. Equally, for disability the figure is £0.66 million, and for public administration it is £13.8 million. As mentioned, that is over a period of 10 years.
However, it should be noted that the methodology for the impact assessment process from which the figures are derived can result in conservative estimates. Illustrative examples in the impact assessment, which are not reflected in the headline numbers of the text and data-mining impact assessment, indicate strongly that efficiency savings could be in the region of more than £124 million per year. They reflect evidence contributed by the creative industries and a range of other sources—and, again, were approved by the independent Regulatory Policy Committee.
To take disability as an example, the exception does not apply if accessible copies are commercially available; therefore, there is no impact on the copyright owner’s sales revenues which might be expected. More disabled people will benefit from access to the copyright works. The accessibility technology market and industries that produce accessible copyright works could benefit as a result of increased demand for accessible works, and increased demand is also likely to act as an incentive for copyright owners to provide their own accessible copies. I could go on to focus on public administration in the same way, but I have made my points; I hope I have done so for the noble and learned Lord as regards going into the figures.
I now pick up on the points raised by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones on contract override. He spent some time focusing on this and stated at one point that he was concerned that the contract overrides would not be retrospective. When we say that a law is retrospective, we mean that it takes effect in the past. For example, if a law introduced this year said that last year it was illegal to cycle without a helmet, that would be retrospective. We are not allowed to do that with this legislation, and we do not intend to. However, that does not mean that the new law will apply only to new contracts; it will apply to contracts, regardless of the date on which they were formed, but will take effect only after the new law comes into force. Contract override provisions simply ensure that where the law provides for an exception to copyright, people are able to rely on that law without having to work out whether there is a contract term to the contrary
My noble friend also asked about currently existing contract override provisions, saying that they were fundamentally different to the new approach and exceptions. The contract override provisions already exist in copyright law and in other areas of law—for example, in property and consumer law. The Government are not therefore doing anything radical here; they merely wish to ensure that the full benefits are delivered.
My noble friend also asked whether there really were 50 copyright exceptions, as I had said, or simply 50 amendments to the CDPA. The answer is that, yes, there really are 50 copyright exceptions. It depends slightly on how you count them, but there are 50 exceptions already in Chapter III of the copyright Act, which sets out the exceptions in approximately 50 sections. I hope that that reassures the noble Lord that what I said was accurate.
My noble friend asked, too, whether the exception would damage publishers’ business models by allowing unrestricted downloads from servers; he stated that the legislation contradicts the guidance and that publishers will not be able to impose reasonable controls. I reassure the noble Lord that the exception will not interfere with the ability of rights holders to impose reasonable measures to maintain stability and security, as long as researchers are able to benefit from the exception to carry out non-commercial research. Guidance that accompanies the draft legislation sets that out clearly. For example, a reasonable restriction on download speed would be acceptable. Furthermore, the exception applies only when a user has lawful access to the material. The ability of rights holders and researchers or their institutions to freely enter into a contract to supply material is unaffected.
There are a number of other questions that I would like to address, notably from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, who asked whether I could confirm that the other SIs would come into force at the next Commons commencement date in October. Yes, that would be our aim. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked specifically on this subject why it should be 1 June and not the next Commons commencement date. We announced our aim to bring the changes into force a long time ago, as they will be aware, and we know that businesses have started to prepare for this—as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, alluded to. We did not want to delay further, as we want to realise the benefits of these changes as soon as possible; it is because of this that we agreed to a waiver of the normal process.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked me to qualify the copyright exceptions in terms of their being defined as minor changes. It is true that I said in Committee that they were minor—“relatively minor” were the words that I used. This is in the context of the extent to which the law is being changed. There is only one brand new exception in these SIs, on text and data-mining; all the other changes modernise and build on existing exceptions. We are clear, however, that the potential benefits are indeed significant.
The noble Lord also raised the issue of private study and its definition. I hope that I can reassure him by saying that the term “private study” is present in the current Act and that the Government do not believe that it has been misunderstood or widely abused.
Accordingly, they do not think it desirable or necessary to define this term in the Act or the Explanatory Memorandum.
There may well be other points I have not addressed but I hope that I have attempted to answer all the questions raised by noble Lords this afternoon. I will conclude by saying that we believe that these are important statutory instruments. As I said, they update copyright law in line with the digital age; support research by enabling text and data mining; update the exceptions for educational purposes so that they are suited to modern teaching technology and practices; make it easier for libraries and archives to preserve our cultural heritage; and allow more disabled people to have access to a greater range of copyright works. This Government have committed to promoting a modern, robust and flexible framework for copyright, and these reforms are an important part of this.