Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
20-39)
RT HON
BEN BRADSHAW
MP AND MR
JONATHAN STEPHENS
20 OCTOBER 2009
Q20 Mr Watson: Before I ask you some
searching questions on the illicit file sharing element of Digital
Britain, can I just add a couple of supplementaries on heritage?
Would you take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Herbert for
discovering the Staffordshire gold haul and do you think that
something so culturally significant should remain in the West
Midlands as the 25 West Midlands MPs do?
Mr Bradshaw: I would certainly
like to join in those congratulations and say yes, I think it
would be admirable if it could be and we are working with the
regional development agency and our partner bodies to see whether
that is a deliverable aspiration.
Q21 Mr Watson: There is no chance,
as a result of future cuts, of bringing back charging in museums,
is there?
Mr Bradshaw: Not under a labour
government although, as I am sure you are aware, the conservative
Mayor of London has indicated he would like to bring back what
he calls voluntary charging, whatever that means.
Q22 Mr Watson: If I could just take
you onto Digital Britain, in one of the finest speeches the Prime
Minister has ever made he used the quote, "a fast internet
connection is now seen by most of the public as an essential service,
as indispensable as electricity, gas and water". Given the
Prime Minister's leadership on this issue and proposals to temporarily
cut people off as a result of accusations of illicit file sharing
by some sections of the music industry, do you think that those
people deserve to prove their innocence in a court of law?
Mr Bradshaw: Yes, absolutely.
The suspension to which you refer—which would be as a very
last resort for serial and serious infringement—would be
subject to a strict two-stage process. It would not just happen
on the basis of an accusation as you seem to suggest in your question.
Firstly there would need to be court order for any of the technical
measures that we are discussing in the consultation document to
be implemented. Secondly, there would be a right of appeal to
a tier one tribunal. I hope that you would not go away with the
impression that innocent teenagers are going to be cut off willy-nilly
on the basis of an accusation; that is not our intention or is
not the effect of what we will propose when we come to publish
the bill.[1]
Q23 Mr Watson: I think that is actually
new.
Mr Bradshaw: It is new; I have
announced it to you today, Mr Watson.
Q24 Mr Watson: Does that mean that
an individual citizen can go to court to oppose an order to cut
them off?
Mr Bradshaw: There will be the
right of an appeal to a tier one tribunal, yes.
Q25 Mr Watson: Perhaps we can explore
what a tier one tribunal is later on. I want to test you a little
more on this. Have you estimated the cost of implementing the
system to suspend file sharers for industry? If so, can you say
what that is?
Mr Bradshaw: I would imagine we
would do so in the regulatory impact assessment that we will be
publishing alongside the Bill. I know you have a strong record
of speaking out on one side of this argument—this is not
meant pejoratively—but there are very strong arguments on
the other side, the cost of doing nothing to the music industry
alone in this country is estimated at about £200 million.
Q26 Mr Watson: Whose estimate is
that?
Mr Bradshaw: That is the industry's
estimate. It is an estimate that I have not seen challenged by
anyone in any serious way. You will be aware that it is not just
the film industry that is concerned about illegal file sharing,
it is the music industry, it is all of our creative sectors. This
is a problem which governments all over the world are grappling
with. I welcome having a serious debate about how we ensure that
people who create things can make value out of it. What I do not
accept is the argument that there should be anarchy on the internet
and that anyone should just be allowed to access what they like
free of charge. The bottom line is, this is theft and I think
we have to be clear about that. Yes, there need to be market solutions
and there are some very imaginative and innovative market solutions
that are being developed all the time, but if you are suggesting
that we do not need to take action to curb this problem I think
the impact on that on our creative sector—which is massively
important to our economy and which has outgrown our economic growth
in general and will provide a lot of the well-paid jobs in the
future—will be devastating. I think we do need to get the
law right and I hope that you will help us do that if you have
the chance to serve on the committee.
Q27 Mr Watson: I will try to do that
in any way I can. So the only estimate we have got to the cost
to industry is £200 million and that is an industry statistic.
Mr Bradshaw: That is just for
the music industry.
Q28 Mr Watson: Has the music industry
estimated how much it will cost the industry to police the suspension
system?
Mr Bradshaw: They may well have
done.
Mr Stephens: I am afraid I do
not know either but, as the Secretary of State said, that is one
of the issues that will be covered in a regulatory impact assessment.
Q29 Mr Watson: Has the Department
estimated what the increased income to industry will be as a result
of implementing this new regulatory burden?
Mr Bradshaw: The aim is to significantly
reduce—I think we give a figure—by 70%. If we do not
manage to reduce by 70% the level of illegal file sharing then
we would move to the next stage in terms of considering technical
measures. One would have to take the estimate of what is currently
being lost to our creative industries and cut 70% off that to
arrive at the figure you have just described.
Q30 Mr Watson: Would it be possible
to give us in writing the estimates that helped you to form the
decision to implement this new system?
Mr Bradshaw: Absolutely, I would
be delighted to do that. I am not sure whether or not it is something
we should do in advance of publishing the regulatory impact assessment
or whether it would be best to wait and put it all in there in
a comprehensive way or to do both at the same time.
Q31 Mr Watson: Given the Prime Minister's
excellent earlier quote, do you think there should be a human
rights impact assessment on this legislation as well?
Mr Bradshaw: I think there has
to be a human rights impact assessment for every piece of legislation.
Q32 Mr Watson: I think that might
be new as well; I do not think you have announced that before.
Mr Bradshaw: I do not think it
is new that there has to be one for every Bill; for it to get
through the legislative process it has to have had the sign off
on the human rights stuff.
Q33 Mr Watson: With the additional
income generated for the industry with this new suspension system—the
70% target you are aiming at which would presumably, in the logic
you apply to this, generate extra income to the industry—have
you worked out how much the artists would get of that figure?
Mr Bradshaw: That would depend
on the contractual arrangements that individual artists have with
the rights holders if they are not the rights holders themselves.
There is very, very strong support from organisations that represent
individual artists and getting the Featured Artists Coalition
to agree to a single policy was described to me like herding cats
and the fact that they did manage to get to an agreed policy on
this I think shows the level of concern among individual artists,
even those who—and there will be different views on this—do
not agree with all of the detail that they came up which I thought
was a very sensible and constructive submission. We will take
theirs and all of the other submissions into account before we
publish the bill.
Q34 Mr Watson: Have you considered
how much the industry is making now through suing people for illicit
file sharing at the moment?
Mr Bradshaw: I have not made an
estimate of that, no. I do not know whether we would have the
figure. I imagine that would be a commercial figure; whether we
can get it or not I do not know.
Q35 Mr Watson: Have you estimated
how many jobs might be generated through this new system, if any?
Mr Bradshaw: What we have estimated
and what I think we have said quite clearly—and I will try
to say quite clearly now—is that if we do not take any action
the impact of the growth of illegal file sharing on our creative
sector would be potentially devastating. As a sector it is growing
more quickly than the rest of our economy. It has continued to
grow through the downturn very, very strongly. It is one of the
sectors that the government has identified in its industrial strategy
in Building Britain's Future as one of our future growth sectors
on which we want to place greater emphasis and give greater priority.
If we do not get the legal framework right, if we do not allow
people to create and defend the value of what they create then
the future employment prospects would be very bleak indeed. That
is why this matters so much. We are leading the way on this debate,
by the way—other countries are looking at what we are doing—and
if we get it right I think it will help us build on our existing
strengths in the creative and cultural sectors which will only
be very good for jobs and for the economy.
Q36 Mr Watson: Do you agree with
the industry lobbyist Geoff Taylor at the British Phonographic
Industry (BPI) who says that there could hardly be more on-line
music offerings?
Mr Bradshaw: There could hardly
be more?
Q37 Mr Watson: There could hardly
be more.
Mr Bradshaw: I am not quite sure
what he means by that.
Q38 Mr Watson: He says there is plenty
out there and the business models for on-line music are not working.
Mr Bradshaw: I think I acknowledged
that by saying that we not only need a legislative framework to
tackle illegal file sharing, but we need workable commercial models.
At the same time as trying to establish a legal framework that
protects rights owners and the value of what they create, it is
also important that we work with the industry and Ingternet Service
(IS) providers and everybody else to try to help them develop
workable commercial solutions. There are a number out there already
that are springing up and I suspect the better the legal framework
we get the more likely it is that others will spring up.
Q39 Mr Watson: Is it not a surprise
to you that ten years into the ubiquity of the internet the industry
has not got its act together?
Mr Bradshaw: I think it would
be fair to say that the industry has been quite slow at coming
to this, but I think there has been considerable acceleration
in the last 12 months and indeed every week that goes by we are
seeing a greater velocity in that direction which I think is a
welcome thing.
1 Note by witness: Written evidence from the
Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, published
as Ev 19 and 20. Back
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