So, after a productive day's debating, things continued on the final day of Report, on 8 March. There was a little more on Clause 30, then nothing on Clauses 31 to 34.

Clause 35 : Local radio multiplex services: frequency and licensed area. There were a few government amendments (namely 140 to 143), but no debate.

No debate on Clauses 36 and 37, but after Clause 37, there was a bit of bother with Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury's new clause to tackle a procedure that protected advertisers from the ITV monopoly - or, at least, the one that more-or-less existed in 2002 when Granada and Carlton merged to become ITV plc. Apparently, a system called CRR (contract rights renewal) was designed to protect advertisers, but after 8 years, the commercial TV picture has changed somewhat, so ITV are losing out, apparently. I don't really understand the technicalities of this, but she seemed to think it was worth looking into, and so did a lot of other Lords. Lord Fowler explained CRR as relating to "the conditions that were adopted to deal with any adverse market effects resulting from the merger of Granada and Carlton, which formed ITV. However, that was in a different age when ITV was a major player in this area. It still is, but it is not as major as it was then". Thus, advertisers no longer need this protection, and ITV are being hindered by it - apparently.

I suppose one could argue that the decline in quality on ITV is a result of falling ad revenues and such - something that the BBC and, to some extent, Sky, don't have to worry so much about - and a strong ITV contributes to better TV in general. Even big BBC fans like myself don't want BBC & Sky to be the only viable options to turn to. Unsurprisingly, the government didn't think the clause was the best way of getting rid of the system, but that the government were taking the issue "with great seriousness". Lord Davies of Oldham suggested that the proposed new clause only dealt with one issue, when there are many other issues to solve.

Clause 38 : Payment for licences. This had a lot more debate in Committee, so there wasn't so much debate in Report. Lord Clement-Jones had a bit to say, but it was a little technical in nature so I didn't quite understand the specifics. Nobody else jumped into the debate, so we'll leave it there.

Nothing on Clause 39.

Clause 40 : Classification of video games etc. Ah, we've got to protect the kids, haven't we? That's the basic message here. Baroness Howe of Idlicote (the Mary Whitehouse of the Lords) went on about protecting kids from hardcore porn, and Lord Alton of Liverpool unsurprisingly brought up the old 'video nasties' chestnut, given the James Bulger killing prompted him to produce an amendment at that time. He states that, looking at the violent society we live in today (because violence didn't exist in his day, oh no), there is "no doubt that the desensitisation of children and young people is a major factor, and that it has been promoted as a result of the violent culture that we have created in the United Kingdom".

Lord Davies of Oldham won me over in a flash when commenting on Lord Alton's 'video nasty' outburst that "at times he presents as known facts that which other reputable authorities would regard as somewhat contentious. I am not sure that violence among young people in this country is down to television, films and broadcasting. It seems to me that it is likely that, in historical terms, there was a considerable amount of violence among young people in society well in advance of anything being depicted on our screens, either large or small, and therefore we should not draw too ready an issue of cause and effect". Hear fucking hear. Now, I'm all for parents being able to stop their kids from seeing things they don't want them to see, and for the government to help them in that, but let's be clear that the responsibility ultimately lies with the parents, and unless we have state censorship for all - something that I don't think anyone wants - then so it shall remain. Oh, and Amendment 145 was agreed to.

Clause 41 : Designated authority for video games etc. Mary Whitehouse of Idlicote returned on her crusade against porn in this clause, trying to establish clear dividing lines between the authority for video works (BBFC) and the authority for video games (VSC). She was hoping that "if products come on the market that are essentially film-type material but are marketed as games, these would be allocated to the BBFC". I'm still not convinced that hardcore video games - or products that have a little game in them but consist almost entirely of a porn film - are a big problem that is threatening society. I can't actually think of any off-hand, and I happen to know about these things - at least more than Baroness Howe does, I'll bet. Perhaps this is a potential problem in the future, who knows.

Regardless, the amendment still speaks to an important issue, that is: who's in charge? At what point does a video game have to be classified by the BBFC instead of the authority designated to deal with games? I think the government answers one of Baroness Howe's questions, saying that the BBFC is always in charge when there is "non-integral film material contained within a game". So, that solves the 'porn with a little game' problem that Baroness Howe thinks is terribly important. Of course, "we are talking about boxed video games here", so if your kids are downloading porn off the net, there ain't much that these provisions can do.

Speaking of getting things online, Baroness Howe suggested a new clause after Clause 41, to improve filtering software for when kids go online via computers or mobile phones. We all know that everyone wants to stamp out 'illegal' content, such as child porn, but not so much is being done to stop other stuff. Lord Young of Norwood Green emphasised that government campaigns should be more about educating parents rather than forced filtering.

Schedule 1 : Classification of video games etc: supplementary provision. Before a grammatical amendment was agreed to, Lord De Mauley put forward a requirement for consumer advice on video products, not just the certificate. To be honest, most DVDs already put the consumer advice on the box, as Lord Davies of Oldham said himself. I myself think consumer advice - is there any sex, bad language, violence or other stuff in the film - is far more useful than a simple age rating, and I have used content advice (from the IMDB) before showing films to kids before, because you don't want to have a bit of a shock. The government's position was that they don't need legislation because of good practice. The amendment was withdrawn, but I kind of agreed with this one.

Clause 42 : Extension and regulation of licensing of copyright and performers' rights. Here we have the 'orphan works' clause, a very contentious piece of legislation. There was a big debate on this, of course, but most people seemed relatively satisfied with the government's amendments to the original draft. Lord Puttnam went so far as to say the government had done a "remarkable job in finding a way through a very complicated area", and their amendments were "a very good compromise". There had been some discussion on the merits of the Bill asking for either a "reasonable" or "diligent" search for copyright owners before declaring something an orphan work. This was a semantic sticking point, as we don't want companies to do a quick Google and say 'can't find them: it must be orphaned'. In the end, "diligent" was preferred.

Before passing the first amendment, Lord Puttnam wanted clarification that public bodies "would not find the hurdle created by the word "diligent" so high that they were in effect not able to clear material. It would be quite absurd if public money was used to clear material for public purposes and for the hurdle to become so high that it becomes unaffordable". Lord Young said that, yes, that would be the case, so that's alright then.

Lord Clement-Jones, despite insisting that the amendments from the government were very welcome, he was still not satisfied with Clause 42 as a whole, and called for the entire clause to be removed from the Bill. It wasn't going to happen, of course, but he made a long and very detailed plea for it. Lord Howarth of Newport was puzzled that Lord Clement-Jones had "resorted to the nuclear option. This seems to be a strange resort for a Liberal Democrat". Ba-doom, tsch. One point that Lord Clement-Jones made was that metadata in photos and the like can be stripped easily, which would perhaps make the copyright holder unknown and thus an orphan work. However, Lord Young stressed very clearly that "the removal of metadata does not render a work orphan". Lord Clement-Jones seemed to be the one man so opposed to Clause 42, so this obviously didn't go any further, but it will be interesting to see how things go in this regard.

After Clause 42, Lord Lucas popped up again to propose a new clause to tackle copyright holders' insistence that 'fair use' on search engines, for example, isn't fair. He explained it by saying that Google images, for example, shows you "a small thumbnail of a picture so that you can flip through many pages while looking for a picture of Lord Lucas, or whatever catches your fancy - I am sure the Minister would never do such a thing - until you find one which is of the right Lord Lucas or is sufficiently horrible to suit your purposes". Oh, you. Lord Young agreed that this was a situation to resolve, but that this amendment wasn't it.

Schedule 2 : Licensing of copyright and performers' property rights. A bunch of amendments with no debate.

Clauses 43 to 47 and Schedule 3 were ignored.

Clause 48 : Commencement. The final amendment was agreed to.

And there you have it, Report Stage done. All that was left was 3rd Reading, before the Commons rushed through it before the end of Parliament.

It's been a while since I last posted anything, and frankly, since the election and the Royal Assent of the DEB, it seems a little pointless talking about it. But, I started, so I'll finish. I still think it's useful to look back on, especially if it proves to be as important a piece of legislation as I think it will be.

Clause 15 : Sharing of costs. Baroness Howe of Idlicote had some words to say regarding costs for copyright holders. As before, it was made clear that copyright holders will pay most of the costs, but ISPs will pay some of them, which will inevitably result in consumers paying a higher price for their internet connection. Oh well.

Clause 16 : Interpretation and consequential provision. One amendment for this, defining "subscriber appeal", that's all. It's for that new clause I mentioned before.

Clause 17 : Power to amend copyright provisions. Yes, the dreaded Clause 17 was debated earlier, and since the government lost the division before, they didn't contest it here. Therefore, Clause 17 changed from "Power to amend copyright provisions" into "Preventing access to specified online locations for the prevention of online copyright infringement". Basically, stopping you getting to illegal websites, rather than changing copyright law. Still a bit controversial, but only for illegal downloaders. You have been warned. Does this mark the end of one-click hosting services? I hope not.

Clause 18 : Powers in relation to internet domain registries. A bit of discussion here, but mainly asking about the definition of words in a legal context. Nothing of note.

Clause 19 : Appointment of manager of internet domain registry. The first amendment, 126, was received warmly as it showed that the government were actually listening to concerns expressed in Committee stage. The other amendment was passed without comment, so obviously received well, too.

Clause 20 : Application to court to alter constitution of internet domain registry. Two drafting amendments agreed.

Clause 21 : Functions of C4C in relation to media content. Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury jumped out to say that it would be bad for Channel 4 to make things in-house. As it stands, they commission programmes from 3rd party production companies (if you've ever watched anything on the channel, you may have noticed different companies listed on the end credits). She thought that, as the Bill stood, it allowed C4C to produce things in-house, provided they're not for the main channel. C4C don't just have one channel anymore, of course, so I guess her concern that there needs to be a revision of their remit is correct. In-house production, she said, "goes against its whole ethos".

Other Lords disagreed: they suggested that, since the world has changed so much, and TV ad revenues are dwindling, restricting the channel with the Baroness' amendment would not be a good idea. Lord Davies of Oldham said the company "needs to maintain in-house production capability, even though the great majority of content is commissioned externally". So, just because C4C are allowed to make certain things in-house, that shouldn't change things too much. I'm sure if it ever became a big problem, we could pass another Act, so I think it's safe to leave it there.

Clauses 22 to 25 weren't mentioned, so we'll skip them.

Clause 26 : Report by OFCOM on public teletext service. Just one amendment, with no debate.

Clause 27 wasn't mentioned either, so we'll skip that one too.

Clause 28 : Appointed providers of regional or local news. Baroness Bonham-Carter did well in this clause, as she had five amendments agreed to - well done to the Lib Dems. Lord Puttnam tried to get in with his appeal to stop Fox News-esque programming, saying "megaphone propaganda damages democracy". Several Lords agreed, and Lord Fowler provided his own personal story: he "used to be chairman of the Yorkshire Post. We were called Yorkshire Conservative Newspapers but had to change the name when the Queen came to open the building because it was not regarded as satisfactory. By the time I became chairman, it was called Regional Independent Media and everything was left to the editors, as I think is right and proper". Lord Davies accepted it, since he had "just accepted amendments from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench and I am not sure that my noble friend Lord Puttnam would take too kindly to me being resistant to his". Lord Puttnam is Labour, so you see his little joke there.

In getting her fifth amendment agreed to, Baroness Bonham-Carter jokingly stated that she'd "trumped the noble Lord, Lord Howard, in accepted amendments". Nice one. The Tories went on yet again about their opposition to public subsidy for local news consortia. They went over the same spiel at Committee. Lord Gordon of Strathblane accepted Lord De Mauley's concern over this, but said that he must "reflect on the fact that ITV has more or less said in terms that it cannot continue to provide regional news". What's to be done? If ITV aren't going to do it, it's clearly not that profitable, so public subsidy is pretty much necessary. It's not the best idea ever, but "it is the least bad one", he said. Lord De Mauley won't listen to that, of course.

Lord Puttnam quite rightly made the point that he wasn't in favour of local news being permanently "in the quasi-public sector", but "the idea of getting a new shape, a new player, into the marketplace and then finding a mechanism whereby it can move off into private hands" was a good one, which is what the government was suggesting. Lord Fowler, for the Tories, interestingly supported the government's amendment, against his party's wishes. Although he went on again about how it "takes us back to the 1950s, but it is worse than that because in the 1950s, at least we had strong regional newspapers" and so on, he still thought the government idea was sound.

On seeing this, Lord Davies jokingly, and rhetorically, asked "what is the role of a Minister when friends fall out in the Opposition?" He understood people's concern about "the ogre that can be created. It is that this will be subject to the Orwellian monstrosity of Ofcom control of news: a deep-laid government plot to ensure that there is a monopoly controller who will eye us all from the television set, which will be the only provision we will get. No; that particular ogre will not materialise. Editorial judgment and control will remain precisely where they should be - with the news providers, who will need support in the early stages". And that's enough of that.

No mention of Clause 29.

Clause 30 : Digital switchover. There was the debate about switching FM off, as before, but Lord Davies of Oldham pointed out that "the idea that the Government are about to alienate 20 million car owners by telling them that their radios are defunct, out of date and will not work is somewhat unrealistic". He made it very clear that, although they're aiming to switch to digital by 2015, they have no intention of switching FM off for a long, long time. Meanwhile, Lord Howard of Rising, who'd brought up the discussion, was "delighted to hear some support from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, after the sandbagging that I received from the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter", referring to her "trumping" him in amendments.

I'll finish report stage in the next post. Still working on the last bit.