COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 2 November 1988)

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, in moving that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 237, I should like to speak also to Amendment No. 336.
Amendment No. 336 makes the same change to Section 26 of the Registered Designs Act as were made to the corresponding provisions in design right at an earlier stage in your Lordships' House. Amendment No. 237 makes a small drafting change to the design right provision.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, Amendment No. 237 covers the question of groundless threats. Can the Secretary of State tell the House why groundless threats appear to be relevant in design right and registered design right but not in the case of copyright? There seems to be an inconsistency here.

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, in copyright the situation is very different. Not only are copyright items usually sold in specialist shops, such as record shops, but copyright is almost universally applicable. For example, almost every record sold is subject to copyright. This comes about because of the very large number of countries whose works benefit from copyright, and because the term copyright is long.
Because of the presumptions built into the Bill, one can usually have a good idea who owns the copyright. For example, one has only to look at a record label to see who owned the sound recording copyright at the time the records were issued. In these circumstances the situation will almost always be clear and we do not think that it is necessary to provide safeguards. Certainly we are not aware of any problems having arisen. Nor has anyone asked us to provide safeguards.