§ Miss Emma NicholsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) if he will make it his policy to seek amendment to the EC draft software directive to allow organisations to back up their computer systems for use in disaster recovery of vital database systems;
(2) whether he will make it his policy to ensure that the EC draft software directive does not place the owners of proprietary products in a monopoly situation;
(3) whether he will make it his policy to ensure that the EC draft software directive is not used by large suppliers of IT products as a means of stifling competition.
§ Mr. LeighThe directive, like existing United Kingdom copyright law, provides that persons who newly create computer programs are given exclusive property rights in those programs in the same way as authors of other copyright works. This encourages the production of new programs and fair competition between program creators, thus producing greater choice for the consumer. The directive will ensure that rights cannot be used to prevent either the independent development of interoperable programs or the making of back-up copies of programs.
§ Miss Emma NicholsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what representations he has received from British computer users concerning the restrictions placed on them by contracts prepared to conform to the EC draft software directive and what response he has made;
(2) if he will make it his policy to seek amendment to the EC draft software directive to draw a distinction between the copying of programs with the primary purpose of transfer into a system for immediate resale and commercial gain and the copying of programs with the primary purposes of system maintenance and research;
(3) what representations he has received from British computer users concerning the effects of the EC draft software directive on their software maintenance rights; and what response he has made;
(4) what representations he has received from the British banking community concerning the impact of the copyright restrictions proposed by the EC draft software directive on the efficiency and standardisation of a bank's operating environment; and what response he has made;
(5) what assessment his Department has made of the implications of the EC draft software directive on the freedom of choice of maintenance services for software licensees;
(6) what assessment his Department has made of the implications of the EC draft software directive on the small and medium enterprises commonly known as third-party maintenance organisations;
(7) what assessment his Department has made of the implications of the Council of Ministers common position on the EC draft software directive on the applicability of the fair dealing exception in respect of computer software.
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§ Mr. LeighI do not expect the directive to change existing practices in software maintenance significantly. Under existing United Kingdom copyright law, copyright owners are free to make whatever contractual arrangements they wish with users of their works, subject only to the general law of contract. This will continue to be the case under the directive except that owners of copyright in computer programs will not be able to prevent decompilation of those programs by persons wishing to create interoperable programs, under certain conditions. The creation of independent computer programs intended to maintain interoperability within computer systems will therefore be possible, free of contractual restraint.
The fair dealing provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 will continue to apply to computer programs on points not covered by the directive. Representations on these matters have been received from the computer users of Europe group, which represents many United Kingdom bodies, including at least one in the banking sector.
§ Miss Emma NicholsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what assessment his Department has made of the implications of the EC draft software directive on the use of open systems;
(2) if he will make a statement on his Department's policy towards current de facto standards used by the information technology business whilst open international standards are emerging; and what assessment his Department has made of the implications of the EC draft software directive on the continued use of these de facto standards;
(3) if he will make it his policy to allow information properly learnt, pursuant to the EC draft software directive, to be used to develop both new non-infringing hardware and new non-infringing software;
(4) what assessment his Department has made of the implications of the EC draft software directive on the trade in those software products containing interfaces to other pieces of software which are so widely used as to be considered as de facto standards;
(5) what representations he has received from British computer users concerning the effects of the EC draft software directive on the ability of compatible vendors to create and market competing computer programs; and what response he has made.
§ Mr. LeighOpen systems, de facto standards, trade in software products incorporating those standards and competing computer programs have all developed in the United Kingdom in parallel with strong protection of computer programs under United Kingdom copyright law. I expect this situation to be unchanged under the proposed directive, which protects only the particular expressions of a computer program, not the ideas and principles which underlie it, and contains exceptions to the rights of copyright owners in order that interoperable programs may be developed.