Live broadcast now:  Now concluded.

The Report stage of the Lords hearing of the Digital Economy Bill recommences today, Monday March 8th. The following briefing has been prepared by photographers for Lords and other interested parties. Please distribute. Downloadable versions are available from links at the bottom of the page.

THE DIGITAL ECONOMY BILL, SECTIONS 42 & 45 :
A COMMENTARY

The Digital Economy Bill returns to the Lords on Monday 8th March to continue its Report stage hearing. A lengthy list of new amendments to S42 has just been published at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200910/ldbills/032/amend/ml03...

Major changes to S42 include:

144 (Lord Razzall) Amendment to remove S42

Today's Intellectual Property Office meeting with 14 photographers' representative organisations about the Digital Economy Bill produced few surprises on either side.

Issues raised by photographers included exclusive contracts, works owned by aliens, model releases, and privacy issues surrounding minors and private social photographs that are protected from publication, all of which would be undermined by orphan licensing.

The IPO spent some time not answering these points but explaining the nuances

Several amendments to the Orphan Works section of the Digital Economy Bill have been tabled by Lord Mandelson today, ahead of tomorrows IPO meeting with photographers' representative organisations. There are no changes to the Bill that we regard as significant or

Editorial Photographers UK and CopyrightAction have issued a paper briefly outlining the problems with the Digital Economy Bill, and also a position statement. These documents reflect all amendments to date, including those issued today, 25 February.

Please distribute freely without alteration. PDF's are available below the text.

The Intellectual Property Office has invited photographers' representative organisations to a meeting this Friday in order to hear photographers' concerns about the Digital Economy Bill. You can read more about this consultation at the BJP. In fact it is a series of meetings. There are at least two on Friday, and we believe, meetings with other creators' groups and the orphan work licensing bodies are happening the previous day. On learning of this a representative of one of the invited organisations said "it looks like they may be trying to divide us. I know I'm not the only one who thinks that. Chances are Ed [Quilty - Director of the IPO Copyright and Enforcement Directorate] just wants us all silenced".

Right Idea, Wrong foot

What has not been reported is that, according to the Conservative Whips Office,

PLEASE LINK TO, COPY, ADAPT, DISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT FREELY AS YOU SEE FIT. WHAT IS IMPORTANT IS THAT YOU WRITE TO YOUR MP ABOUT

The Digital Economy Bill : what's yours is ours

The end game is now in sight. The Digital Economy Bill is now expected to become law within the next 6 weeks. It introduces orphan works usage rights, which - unless amended, which HMG says it will not - will allow the commercial use of any photograph whose author cannot be identified through a suitably negligent search. That is potentially about 90% of the photos on the internet.

Copyright in photos is essentially going to cease to exist, since there