My Lords, the digital provisions are a vital aspect of the Bill, bringing consumer law into the 21st century. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has said, we need to get the rulebook right for the future, given the sheer scale, growth and innovation of the sector which he illustrated with some telling figures. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for his intervention and for reminding us of the importance of digital skills. He mentioned the hour-by-hour changes that are made to digital content and touched on the potential for co-production, which was interesting and important. Like him, I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Harding, who I also worked with when she was in retail, has joined the House and I agree that she will be able to bring some great insights to these important debates.
I can assure noble Lords that we have given extensive thought to and researched what these rights should be. What is clear is that a goods-like approach to the treatment of digital content is the right one to take. It
builds on consumer expectations and familiar concepts for both businesses and consumers. The Bill will give consumers confidence, when they buy digital content, that it will be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described. If it is not, they will be entitled to have the digital content repaired or replaced, and failing that to get some or all of their money back. This approach creates a consistent regime for consumer protection other than where differences between goods and digital content justify different treatment, for example, because of the intangible nature of digital content.
Aligning the rights for goods and digital content completely would be a step too far. The main effect of providing that digital content should have the same rights as goods, as this amendment would do, would be to give consumers the short-term right to reject digital content that is supplied in intangible form, such as the music and films we download or games that are played online. We think that this would create real difficulties for our important digital content industry and would slow or prevent launches of new products in the UK. We believe that consumers will already be well protected by the new regime we have proposed without a short-term right to reject. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, and as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, anticipated in his remarks, we have made clear in Clause 16 that goods which include digital content, such as digital content on a DVD or within a washing machine, will attract the full goods remedies, including the short-term right to reject. This also applies to software pre-installed on a computer or apps pre-installed on a phone. If the digital content is faulty, the consumer will be able to reject the goods in which it is included and return them to the trader. However, there are some significant differences between intangible digital content and goods which have led us to take a slightly different approach to digital content that is supplied in intangible form.
First, when consumers exercise their short-term right to reject faulty goods, they have no right to retain them. Under Clause 20, they have to make those goods available to the trader. However, unless digital content is embedded within a physical item, such as a DVD, it is difficult to return it to the trader in any meaningful sense. For example, it would be difficult for a consumer to return a faulty film they had downloaded to iTunes and, even if they did, the device would automatically retain a copy of the film. It has been suggested that the consumer could be required to delete the digital content as they cannot return it. However, this is easier said than done, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, partly acknowledged. A requirement on consumers to delete the digital content would be difficult for even the best-intentioned consumer. For example, if a consumer was to e-mail back some digital content to the trader, a copy would be automatically retained in their sent box. In some cases, it would be impractical to delete the digital content. For example, a consumer might buy a so-called “mod” for a virtual world game such as Minecraft to be integrated into their world and built on further. Once this mod had been built on, if the mod proved to be faulty it would be impractical to delete it. A repair, or “patch”, to return the digital content to functionality would be a much more appropriate remedy.
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