Oral evidence: Creative Industries in Scotland, HC 332Wednesday 28 October 2015
Oral evidence, 28 October 2015.
Witnesses
John McVay, Member, Creative Coalition Campaign, and Ian Moss, Vice Chair, Alliance for Intellectual Property, gave evidence.
Chair
Good afternoon, gentlemen, and fancy meeting you here. I have to say to the rest of my Committee colleagues that I am very familiar with both these gentlemen and the work we have been doing with the all-party intellectual property group in the course of the past years. For the benefit of this Committee, both of you tell us who you are, first of all—who you represent and just a little bit about how important and valuable intellectual property is for the underpinning of the success of the creative economy and the creative industries. I think the Committee would like to know your views about the centrality of IP when it comes to these things.
John McVay
Thank you very much. I am here wearing many hats but I am probably not the first person you have heard saying that. I am here representing the Creative Coalition Campaign, which is a pan-industry—union, composers, producers, directors—association that has been created, along with the support of Pete and many other Members of Parliament, to help make sure Parliament is conscious of how valuable intellectual property is and, also, to take measures to protect it. I will come on to more of that shortly specifically in terms of your inquiry in the Scottish creative industries. I am also the chief executive of Pact, which is the trade body representing the UK’s film and TV digital children’s animation producers. I am also a member of the Creative Coalition Campaign; the chairman of the UK’s Digital Single Market campaign; and also chairman of the Creative Diversity Network, the broadcasting body responsible for increasing diversity across broadcasting. So I have many hats on. I am very happy to talk about any of those subjects but I am here representing the Creative Coalition. I would endorse the Chair’s remarks that the intellectual property industries, the creative industries, are a valuable part of the UK and Scottish economies. They are an increasingly growing valuable part of that and certainly, as the world moves to more global markets and more opportunities for monetising around intellectual property, that also brings opportunities for growth but also brings significant threats. I think every Government across the UK has a key role to play in supporting the businesses and creators you are responsible for, and intellectual property I see lies at the heart of the UK’s future success.
Chair
Thank you. We will come on to quite a number of these issues that you raise with us in your introductory remarks. Ian.
Ian Moss
Thank you for inviting me along. I am the vice chair of the Alliance for Intellectual Property and that is the role that I am in here today but, like John, I can segue through several different hats, including the Creative Coalition Campaign of which we are members. In my day job I am director of public affairs at the BPI, which is the British recorded music industry. To back up what Pete and John McVay were just saying, the Alliance represents 24 trade associations. We are a representative body of trade associations from across the creative, branded and design sectors. We have a collection of interests in ensuring that intellectual property rights are valued in the UK and protected, and the work around our industries is promoted in a way that makes people understand quite how important intellectual property is to the UK economy as a whole and, indeed, Scotland itself. Our members include representatives of audio-visual, music, game software, sports rights—sport is often forgotten in this mix but it is fundamental to sport that intellectual property rights and copyright are respected and promoted—branded manufactured goods, books, magazines, publishing and retail design sectors. Through our membership we have members in every part of the UK, and obviously some of those are very large companies, but if there was any characteristic of the creative industries it is mainly made up of very small SMEs, whether that is in the publishing sector, the music sector or small individual designers. When we talk about protection and promotion of intellectual property, we are defending the rights of many, many small businesses around the country. To go to the question about the importance of this, we are one of the world leaders in almost every category of creative industry that I have just explained. The creative industries are worth around £75 to £76 billion to the UK economy and about 1.7 million jobs. There is very heavy investment in them. They are very good for our exports. In many of these areas we are world beaters. We are the fifth-largest games industry in the world. We are one of the largest music industries in the world; and so on. In a world where ideas can be sold and ideas have such a great value, the UK is incredibly and uniquely positioned to capitalise, and that is why intellectual property has been growing faster than other areas of the economy. We saw in the statistics this week that returns to the film industry are growing faster than other parts of the economy and so on and so on, so if you are looking at rebalancing the economy, you should look at intellectual property and the creative industries.
Chair
Thank you both for those very helpful introductory comments. Scottish Government has identified the creative sector, the creative economy, as one of the major growth sectors as we go forward in terms of the Scottish economy. All issues to do with intellectual property are reserved; it is run by the Intellectual property Office here; it is split across Departments, the DCMS and in BIS. We are dependent on intellectual property and its rights and depend on you guys to help us in terms of the UK industry going forward. What more could we do to get interest in IP in Scotland? Is there any work that we could be doing with specific agencies or support services in Scotland, and how do we get the message across that this is an important issue for inventors, creators, writers, artists to get involved in as they are developing their businesses?
John McVay
I have argued for a decade now that it would be helpful to include something about creation and intellectual property in the business of creation in the curriculum at some point. I think this is an important part of our economy and yet it is completely missing from what we teach our children. One of my sons is very keen on design and architecture. He is halfway through his A levels and he is looking at that. I asked him to look at all the courses he is looking to apply for, and none of the degree courses have anything about intellectual property protection either. I think it is something that all Governments can do something about. The other thing is that there has been a recent campaign just launched, which is a joint campaign between internet service providers and content creators called CCUK—Creative Content UK. That has just been launched this week. I and many other trade associations will be promoting this to creators and other bodies. I think all Governments, as far as you can, can help to do that and promote it. It is a very high-profile educational campaign to encourage people to use legitimate content and to explain, in very easy to digest ways, what are the consequences if you use illicit content and what impact that has on the quality of the content you could expect in future; the jobs and so on. That is a campaign that is being supported by the UK Government. Clearly, I would look to the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly—although it is not devolved powers—to keep up pressure on the Westminster Parliament to make sure that they address issues around intellectual property. The current review that is going on about the role of intermediaries—search engines where we can drive people to sites that are being monetised illicitly—I think that is a loss of revenue to the creative industries. Those platforms generally hold up their hands and say, “It is nothing to do with us; we are just the pipes,” but they are generating revenues from that themselves if there is advertising involved. I think more should be done on that and certainly I would encourage you to consider that.
Chair
Before we come to Ian, is there more that agencies in Scotland—I am thinking of Creative Scotland, Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Government, for example—could do more to promote and help businesses and those involved in the creative industry sector about the opportunities and challenges there are when it comes to intellectual property? Is there more that you have observed that we would do and things that we might be able to do better through our public agencies in Scotland?
John McVay
I have to admit I do not know what Creative Scotland does on this at all, as they seem to be more an organisation that is culturally focused rather than commercially focused. While the cultural products that come out of intellectual property activities are highly valuable in a range of ways for society and for business, I would think it would be more the role of maybe perhaps Scottish Enterprise or the Scottish equivalent of BIS to look at how businesses can better protect intellectual property. There are also roles for the Scottish police force to adopt—a PIPCU or similar activity—to support people protecting intellectual property rights because the investment that goes into creating something can be considerable, not just in cash but in blood, sweat and tears. That value can be lost quite quickly, so it is always hard for the SMEs Ian described to protect themselves from rapacious and sometimes industrial-scale illicit use of their content. That is where I think Government does have a role in terms of helping those businesses either through enforcement or advice to help those businesses, which are often very small and will not necessarily have the capital to take someone to court. Helping to educate people about the role of copyright at an early stage—someone sitting in their garage, as you and I once did, Pete, coming up with a song, when we write the song when we are 17, we do not really know what copyright is; we just want to write a song. But if that ends up being a big successful song then we worry about it. Those are the things Governments should be looking at as it is the 21st century economy.
Chair
Ian, do you work with Scottish agencies for example?
Ian Moss
We do have a lot of dealings with the Scottish police. On a practical level, I would say our work in Scotland, with Police Scotland and with Trading Standards, has been very, very good. They have intellectual property crimes as a management indicator. They did have it as a key performance indicator but it still is a management indicator. We have the forensic unit in Scotland with two staff, which is extraordinarily helpful in investigating intellectual property crime. A lot of this is still physical-based—so, DVDs, CDs, manufactured copies—but it really is a very good partnership and I think we have to accentuate the positive on this. As John says, going into a digital age looking more at what can be done to support the work in England and the PIPCU would be very interesting because of course there are issues around digital distribution, search engines, advertising and advertisers that should be co-ordinated across all law enforcement agencies in the UK. On the very practical point, again following on from what John said about Creative Content UK, it is something that Alliance members have been very involved in and me personally through BPI, which is part of the partnership. Anything that can be done by the Scottish Government to promote the Get it Right From a Genuine Site campaign to Scottish audiences—and that frankly includes resources, any advertising space that we can be given, any initiatives even through the creative sector agencies in Scotland that can promote that—is very important because, ultimately, the big thing we are wrestling with through all our enforcement work and why the Alliance was set up in the first place is ensuring that the right value gets to the right bit of the chain; that the people making the intellectual property, the people coming up with the ideas, the people generating this incredible creative story in the UK, get their fair share out of a digital world. At a very basic level that is education, as we have talked about. At a median level it is about ensuring that enforcement works and all the agencies are drawn up. At a macro level it is ensuring that at a European level, above UK, the framework works for all the people in it and we make sure that the right value is being distributed down the value chain. Those are the really difficult problems that the intellectual property world faces in the next few years.
Kirsty Blackman
The UK Government told us that, in terms of intellectual property, they work with the Scottish Government to ensure that organisations in Scotland are aware of any changes or any policies or consultations in relation to IP. Does this work in practice? Does it work well? Could it be done better?
John McVay
In terms of consulting with the Scottish Government?
Kirsty Blackman
In terms of how that filters to creative organisations in Scotland.
John McVay
Okay. Because we have many members in Scotland, when we are consulted by any Government about copyright or intellectual property issues we go and consult our members in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the English regions. So our response is always a UK response but our response is based on consulting our businesses across the UK. Sometimes they will feed in to particular consultations from the Scottish Government or Creative Scotland, as we have done. In terms of the opportunities to be consulted and fed back, they do exist. Whether that is sufficient in terms of the interaction between the Scottish Parliament and Westminster I am not qualified to answer.
Kirsty Blackman
That’s fine.
Ian Moss
It is worth reflecting on the two big issues of consultation, one historic and one current. The historical one was the Hargreaves Review, which sought to create exceptions to copyright; basically to remove the rights of copyright holders to be paid in specific circumstances. In that review—it is not a Scottish-only issue—I felt that the views of the creators—the views of the artists, the individuals, the designers, the people that were making the copyright—were not given adequate weight and the evidence was not sought in an appropriate way. We are where we are with this. I think when we finally come to evaluate and reflect on what exactly happened following that review, we will find the exceptions did not suddenly have the dramatic impact on the UK tax sector that was promised. I think part of all of this problem is an assumption that there is a bold tomorrow in technology that does not involve content and content is the thing that people want access to; the technology is a means of access to it and the deals are what we want to do, commercially on commercial terms, between our members and our businesses and the technology companies. Any consultations that change that framework change the balance of commercial negotiations. It is incredibly difficult to garner the right sort of views from thousands of small individuals who are working on content compared to the kind of tech cluster that might have a very similar, very homogenous view. The contemporary challenge is the Digital Single Market. It is not just a problem of the UK Government ensuring that it is getting through to the Scottish Government and response in Scotland. It is that the European Commission and the European Parliament are getting through to the UK that is getting through and that both of those channels are working. From our experience of the Hargreaves Review I think the Government is in a slightly different position now. It is making all the right noises about the evidence necessary for changes to the copyright framework and anything that creates uncertainty creates problems in commercial markets and creates problems in negotiations.
Kirsty Blackman
On uncertainty, can you explain further about why stability and lack of uncertainty is important?
John McVay
Yes, it is very simple. If you look at say a major drama series—“Outlander”, which is made in Scotland, funded by Netflix—that is a multi-million dollar investment. Any threat to anyone making that, in terms of their ability to monetise that globally will reduce investment because with big high-quality audio-visual products—unlike music, which is on a different scale—a lot of money goes into just the creation: $50 million can go; $100 million into the latest Netflix series on the Queen. That is a huge investment. It is of the scale of a major single Hollywood movie. You recoup that from being able to sell it through multiple windows, as they are called, and through multiple territories. Anything that undermines that will chill investment. Of course, one of our concerns about the Digital Single Market, which is the Commission’s position: they would like to see a single market for European consumers to access European content when it was made available in any one country. Now of course the UK is the largest exporter to Europe, £340 million of TV exports is generated in Europe. We sell our programming into Europe by territory: by France; by Germany; by Holland; by Italy; by Poland. Any attempt to create one single market where we would only sell to one buyer would force me as a creator to sell it to the buyer who would give me the most money. That would more than likely be Amazon or Netflix, because they are a subscription service where you have access to high pay revenues, or Sky—indeed, Sky Europe if you want. What I would not be doing would be selling it to a small broadcast channel in Poland for a discounted price. So this is not an issue about copyright. Copyright works very well. As a copyright owner I can choose to give my content away or I can choose to monetise it. It is my right to do that. This is an issue about contractual and commercial freedom. The way rights owners license their works is normally by territory. Sometimes with the music industry that is pan-European, but they have deals through that. For audio-visual works we sell by territory. The Commission’s view—and I must admit that I think the Westminster Government is slightly sympathetic to this—is that there should be more opportunities for single-market licensing. That would be of severe detriment to the UK audio-visual industry, which is the second largest exporter on the planet, and that includes Scottish companies.
Chair
I think this Committee is concerned about some of the conversations we are having with Digital Single Market; in particular the impact it will have on audio-visual. A lot of the content produced and provided in Scotland is audio-visual. We know that the music industry has managed to secure a pan-European approach. Other than the territoriality issues with audio-visual is there anything else that we should be concerned about with the coming of the Digital Single Market? Is there anything that Scottish creators, those who are working in the sector, should be looking at? What is round the corner with Digital Single Market?
Ian Moss
There are other aspects. Obviously territoriality is one important aspect. From the Alliance point of view, further exceptions to copyright are a concern. Going back to the issue of stability, copyright is the only thing you have; the property right is the only thing you can trade. If there is a potential for an exception coming round the corner, first it can put a block on deals. People say, “We will wait to see if we have to pay for it at all”. Or the deal can be on asymmetric terms in the sense that someone might go, “We will give you this price because you know in two years we might be able to get it for free,” so it chills the price as well. Particularly for the publishing industry, the concerns over text and data mining and the effect that has on its business model—where it has licences for people to do exactly that—the idea that will be an exception and that people will not have to be licensed is a significant concern to that industry, which relies on income from those licences. For the educational publishing industry the idea of an exception for copyright for educational institutions would be a terrific intervention in the market, in the sense that people being able to freely share educational publications without payment would be a great loss both to the UK industry but also to the future of people willing to put the time and effort into creating publications for an education market when they cannot raise a return from it. So there are issues that are for seemingly innocuous public policy reasons coming round the corner in a digital single market that will have a significant impact. On the plus side, there is quite a lot of stuff in enforcement and intermediaries that we can talk about as well.
Chair
Thanks for that. It is the UK Government that is going to be doing this for us and they will be interfacing with the European Commission when it comes to the single market so, therefore, they are going to be looking after the interests of Scottish artists and creators and their sector too. Are you confident that the UK Government has the right approach when it comes to Digital Single Market? I know there are concerns about audio-visual but just in terms of this overall engagement, conversations about the Digital Single Market are we getting on the right track? Or are the difficulties and problems that we should be looking at as a Committee when it comes to how this is being done?
John McVay
For Scottish audio-visual creators who I know best, but broadly creators, I think anything that opens up a broader market for goods and services is a good thing. The question is how much you are compelled to do that as a rights owner, which is the worrying thing. One of the things that the UK Government is very interested in is, indeed, the Commission’s the main focus. I listened to one of the commissioners yesterday at an event here in London where they are stressing very much that they do not want to do anything that would be disruptive. However, their main focus is on what is called portability—the idea that you can subscribe to a service in one country, go on holiday and still get that service, which would seems eminently sensible. It raises all sorts of other issues and I suppose I have yet to meet anyone from the Commission, the UK Government or anywhere else that has been able to give me a very clear understanding and define portability in its complete vision. Being on holiday for two years in Germany might be different from being on holiday for two weeks in Majorca and, therefore, is that portability or is it just allowing a different type of access, cross-border access, which is where value can be lost? One of the things that concerns me is the Commission’s view about what is called geo-blocking and our Government in Westminster has yet to be more definitive about this, which is whereby if Scottish television were to broadcast a show, it would go on the Scottish Television VOD service, the catch-up service, and that would become immediately available to everyone in Europe, which means that Scottish Television would have a job selling that programme at a value price to a French buyer or a German buyer because it would already be freely available. So that I think would be of detriment to the Scottish creative economies, whether it is Scottish television or indeed my members making programming for other broadcasters. That has to be really looked at. It gets bundled up into issues about portability but portability becomes cross-border access then that will have severe consequences for the monetisation of Scottish creative audio-visual content.
Chair
Ian, do you think the UK Government has got it about right?
Ian Moss
I think the most important thing the UK Government could do now is clarify its position clearly, openly, on the record, to Europe and to creators across the UK. We are hearing very sensible noises out of the UK and we have all sorts of assurances from the Government, but we do not feel that that has yet got itself into a clear message to either the people negotiating in Europe on the behalf of the UK Government or the Commission itself. We have been on a journey with this and the previous Coalition Governments, over IP and the Digital Single Market, and the most important thing to emphasise here is we are digital businesses. We are all digital businesses. We are all doing deals on commercial terms across Europe in the way that works for us and for our consumers and we are licensing technologies on that basis as well. As John has said, for music, my industry, that might be different terms from the AV industry but that is because the way investment works is different and the way the markets work is different. Copyright itself is not a barrier. We have gone a long way with this Government, since the days of coalition, in understanding that. I still think there are hangovers from what happened two, three, four years ago that need to be clarified and need to be sorted out.
Chair
Do you think that the European Commission get the sense that we are the biggest producers of content across Europe? Do they understand our particular sensitivities and concerns when it comes to Digital Single Market and the impact that this will have on our sectors as compared and contrasted to east Europeans or southern Europeans?
Ian Moss
You ask the question for a very good reason, which is: I am sure you know that the answer is that we do not think, at the moment, the UK is still being able to really press the fact that it is extraordinarily concerned about its creative industries, that the Digital Single Market has to work in a way that works for consumers and businesses alike and the long-term benefits for consumers are best served by long-term investment in content and commercial deals. The European Commission should be very concerned about interventions in the market that might in the long term damage consumer interests, even in fact in the short term. There are obviously other factors involved in the European negotiations, at the moment, that make looking at this in isolation difficult but the Government put in a non-paper some time ago which was of concern to the creative industries. If they have moved their thinking on they need to clarify that and get that up to the Commission.
Chair
I suppose at the heart of the debate about intellectual property, copyright, there is a tension between consumer access to the services they expect—there is a feature of the digital age: we put on our iPads and there is a certain expectation that we get content out of our fingertips—but also the monetising of this content for the people who create and make it so it makes it worthwhile to create all this wonderful content. Are we getting that balance about right in the UK just now? Or do we favour the consumer at the expense of the creator and the artist? Is this something that we are beginning to get fixed?
John McVay
I think there is a false dichotomy between the consumer and artist. I think they are aligned. If I have made something and people in Germany would like it, why would I not want to give it to them, provided I can monetise it? Why should I be forced to give it to them? There have been great shows made over the years—“Taggart” would be one that sold very well from Scotland; I am sure you all remember it well—but that is done by demand being developed. We provided a case study to the Government about “Midsomer Murders”, the UK’s largest-selling drama, which is highly popular in Germany and Scandinavia; Angela Merkel’s favourite programme—she’s got some taste—but I know from the people who sell that, when they go into a new territory they often discount that programming to help the local channel or the local VOD service build up an audience for it. Then over time it becomes more popular and they might extract more value as that channel or VOD service begins to get more money; it becomes more popular. That is something you can choose to do because you are not forced to give it away to that territory. Now of course if you are forced to give it away, my other point, which is you will not sell it at a discount to build a market. What you will have to do is go to the person who will write you the biggest check and unfortunately that will probably be an American tech company. So instead of this driving media plurality, diversity and consumer interest in Europe it will probably drive high-value rights into the arms of American tech companies and they will control it.
Chair
Should the Scottish creative industry, particularly in the AV sector, be concerned, then, just now, about what is happening in Digital Single Market and this Government’s approach and what the Commission’s plans are?
John McVay
Absolutely. Going to your point, which is, “Is this part of the broader debate and discussion with the Commission and the Westminster Parliament?”, obviously this has to be part of that discussion because this right up front for the Commission’s ambitions. Juncker, Ancelet and others have come out and said this is critical to the Commission’s vision. This is not a secondary issue for the Commission; this is what they see as a primary economic driver for a single market and they have identified this as one of the ways to try to stimulate European economy. That is perfectly legitimate. My worry is that high-value parts of the UK economy would effectively be thrown under a bus in order to achieve that ambition and we have to be conscious that the UK’s balance of trade on high-quality audio-visual content is positive and that is something we should be determined to protect. £340 million from Europe into our economy sustains jobs, creativity, secondary earnings, payments for artists, musicians, composers, actors, writers. That is a very important part of our overall audio-visual economy and if we lose it, it will be very hard in the short term to find replacement income so that will have a detrimental effect on the quality of our content, which will have a detrimental effect on our ability to sell to other buyers globally.
Mr Anderson
I am not an expert in this field by any means but from a local business that I am working with, one of the problems he has is that he is being blocked—he is convinced by cyber-attack—from developing his business in the States. Is that something that your members have problems with, the overall security within your networks?
John McVay
Content is regularly taken off members and used illicitly. Because of the nature of programme-making you have a lot of very sensitive personal data. For instance if you were doing a programme about people who were undergoing various changes to their physique, then clearly you have researched a lot of people and you will have collected a lot of personal data, so it is incumbent on all companies to protect that data to the highest level of encryption. If there are people out there who want to get it, then I am sure they will go and try to get access to that data. As we have seen on so many occasions, in very senior level organisations, that is possible but I think it is up to every business to look at very high levels of encryption on any data or any information. Whether we have experienced any particular anti-commercial attacks on businesses I don’t really know because content, we give it away free on television every night and then sell it so, other than people taking it off and then distributing themselves; but that’s different.
Mr Anderson
Are you happy then, the other side of it, with the encryption that you are secure enough? The guy I am working with, he believes he is being attacked by Google. He has been told by an expert in the field, “Your best thing to do is put your server in Russia”. We have had discussions with DCMS Ministers and so on and they all said, “We are all doing the right thing” but again—and it’s my ignorance—the field you are working in will be wide open to stuff like that.
John McVay
I do not know enough about where servers should go. Certainly for my business, for Pact, we have double encryption and three sites that back up our website and all our data every night. If we do have an attack we can be restored pretty much instantaneously and I think that is the world that all businesses—we are all digital businesses now—are in so I would think that as we move into the opportunities that the digital markets bring us, I think it is incumbent on Governments, educationalists, trade associations and others to help educate businesses about how best to protect themselves and how best to develop those opportunities. But I think it has to be fair to say—going to your point—that I would look forward to the cost of data security being a standard overhead on every single business, going forward, partly through law because of data protection legislation but also because of commercial interests. We have seen some major US studios hacked and personal details being distributed widely. The cost of that to those institutions is huge. I think it is something that has to be factored into all Governments’ thinking about economic growth that this is now. It is not just your rents, your rates or your whatever else that are now a cost; in a digital world, that is a cost that you will have to cover.
Chair
On that theme we have had several submissions to this inquiry about tackling IP infringement. Both of you said something in your introductory remarks about where we are with all this. Do you think this is improving, the current problem? Is there enough being done so IP infringement is being tackled and tackled effectively?
Ian Moss
Let’s talk about physical piracy, because it is still there as a legacy issue and is certainly an issue in Scotland that we have engaged with over a number of years. I started with my remarks about BIS Scotland and the work that we have done there and the Anti Illicit Trade Group in Scotland, which brings together public and private sectors being very effective in co-ordinating issues. We have had some markets in Scotland where we have had significant issues. In one high-profile example the Commonwealth Games did help us to get over a lot of the problems—[Interruption.]
Chair
Sorry, I have just seen there is a Division—there will be two. We are almost through with the questions. I don’t want to bring you guys back. Is there anything else that we have missed that you could give us a couple of minutes on?
Ian Moss
Very quickly, and it is a cyber issue: the online environment is the biggest challenge. An individual can create a great piece of work whether that be a game, a film, a book, or music, and if it is stolen before it is widely released or widely sold then that can be the end of their employment in the creative industries. We are talking here about people who lose their jobs because their album is stolen or their work is stolen and distributed widely for free. All that we can do to co-ordinate activities online but, also, to get each individual bit of the value chain to take its responsibilities; so search, payment providers, advertisers and advertising should all be doing their bit and the UK Government has made some commitments on, for instance, trying to reduce the amount of pirated material in search engines but I think we need to make sure that they push these issues because for people who are ent4ering the world of the creative industries now and the digital industry, the protection of rights online is critical to their ability to grow a business.
Chair
Quickly, any last remarks, John?
John McVay
I endorse all that. As this is a Scottish Affairs Committee, I would say that if we get this right then there are great opportunities for growth for Scottish creative businesses. Although there is a lot of scary stuff out there, the world is wide open now and there is nothing to stop great Scottish content travelling round the world and making money for Scottish creatives.
Chair
On that very positive note we thank you. Sorry about the Division. You guys are familiar enough with this to know exactly what happens with these things. Thank you very much.