Wri t ten evidence submitted by Graham Linehan

I am writing regarding your Committee's inquiry into the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property. I support the findings of the Hargreaves review, and am delighted that the Government has committed to accepting the report's recommendations.

I am particularly keen to see that the Government follows through with the proposal for a new exception to copyright for parody and satire. It concerns me that an absence of legal certainty means that the creation of legitimate parodies and satires is being stifled rather than encouraged.

Encouraging parody and satire is especially important given the potential for a democratisation of culture in the digital age. New technology is so exciting because ordinary people, not just professionals, or professional comedians, can make videos and get them noticed. If they do get noticed, they potentially have a huge audience. 

If I see somebody making a video that I think is funny, for example on YouTube, I have a look around and try to see who they are and figure out if they could write comedy. It's a big shift in the way people can get involved in the business, and overall, it means that the quality of comedy is going to go up.

As a writer of comedy it is important to know that parody and satire are to hand in my writing tool box. I might have a layer of lawyers between me and the final product, but plenty of people don't. I see too many examples of funny videos, for example the many ingenious 'Downfall' videos on YouTube, forced off the Internet for no good reason.

Some find their way back up to YouTube, of course. But this is because of users' persistence that helps them outmanoeuvre the enforcement of an outdated law. Creators' should not be at the mercy of a video service's take-down procedures when the law those services follow provides no certainty that their creations are legitimate pieces of work.

I hope the Committee supports the implementation of the Hargreaves review. I hope politicians are brave enough to ensure that, through a new parody exception, we have a copyright law that allows aspiring comedians to make the most of the wonderful opportunities of the digital age. 

1 September 2011