COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 2 November 1988)

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 184. In speaking to Amendment No. 184 I shall with leave speak also to Amendments Nos. 187 and 318 to 330 inclusive. Amendments Nos. 184 and 187 give Schedule 2 an introductory clause of its own, to make it more prominent.
Amendments Nos. 318 to 330, though voluminous, do no more than bring the exceptions to rights in performances which are detailed in Schedule 2 into line with the exceptions to copyright under Part I of the Bill as amended in another place. All the amendments in this group parallel Commons amendments to Part I which the House has already agreed. The one exception is that Amendment No. 330 requires amendment as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, in line with the amendment the House agreed earlier to Amendment No. 72.
Your Lordships have already accepted in our earlier debates that rights in performances should not go further than rights in works, and it follows that where there is an exception to copyright under Part I the exception to any comparable right in a performance should correspond as closely as possible.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, I should also like to speak to the same group of amendments as detailed by the Secretary of State. I have no problem with any of these amendments other than Amendment No. 323, which is an amendment to Schedule 2.
Apart from the use of the expression "impliedly"—which is novel to me in the English language—I find it difficult to see where the transferee fits in. I think that this is the first time, although I may be mistaken, that I have come across the expression of transfer of copies of works in electronic form. In other parts of the Bill we have had different expressions, but I believe that I am right in saying this is the first time we have come across this expression.
I find the drafting of Amendment No. 323 extremely difficult to follow. I should just like to put that on the record. I do not know how many times I have read it, but I still find it difficult to follow. If I say that I find it incomprehensible, it means that I find it extremely difficult to understand—indeed, so do my advisers. However, there is nothing much that one can do at this stage.
Amendment No. 330, as the noble Lord said, is attached to Amendment No. 330A. However, when mentioning the grouping he did not specify 319 Amendment No. 330A, but I think that that was the amendment which he indicated he would accept and which would be moved at the appropriate time.
I am sorry to take up your Lordships' time but I wanted to put on the record the fact that I find Amendment No. 323 extremely difficult to understand. I accept that the noble Lord has given us an explanation about what it is, and therefore I shall have to read carefully what he said in tomorrow's Official Report.

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will not take anything I say either expressly or impliedly as meaning that I also find this difficult—because I actually do. I shall explain it very expressly. Transfer is mentioned in Amendment No. 48, which has already been agreed and Amendment No. 323 is an exact parallel of it.
I suspect that this will be a valuable mine in times to come for lawyers to quarry and to show an interest in. I assure the noble Lord that I should have included Amendment No. 330A, which follows an amendment which he introduced earlier.