The highly controversial Digital Economy Bill has been passed – but without Clause 43, which was last night axed in Parliament. We welcome that a proper and thorough consultation with the government can now begin. BAPLA has worked hard to bring parts of the industry together in a bid to create a voice that makes this process of consultation both effective and representative despite how it may have been portrayed.

The position that BAPLA has worked on since we went public with our concerns on Clause 43 at the start of this year, was to assure guarantees of a full and fair consultation on our copyright from all parties, whether C43 was passed or not.

Since the first draft was published last year, we’ve spent weeks debating with the Intellectual Property Office, the Lords and the politicians leading the Digital Economy Bill for Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. And that continued after the second hearing was underway. On Tuesday night, reacting to a proposed amendment that would pass the clause if images taken after 1950 were excluded, we contacted all leading MPs to point out flaws in such a solution, and expressing BAPLA’s view that irrespective of date threshold, it would not be possible to manage OW if guarantees of provisions which have been lobbied extensively by the UK creative industries were not guaranteed.

Under BAPLA's initiative, associations from the photography industry came together and agreed on what was right and what was wrong with C43, and our goal was to present government with a well organised message from a number of groups to secure the right legislation if it was passed – whilst still enabling us to individually continue our lobbying in the build up to this week. The tone and the content of the statement was agreed and written by all who signed, and BAPLA is committed to continue working with those co-signatories and others who join as we look for a copyright framework that is fair and properly protects photographers and right’s holders.

We see the journey as just beginning and our work now is to take the lobbying we started last year and dig even deeper to ensure the new debate that’s being promised comes to fruition, and quickly. Our concern still is a world where a solution for Orphan Works and the management of our copyright is dictated by the US or the EU, which could include exceptions. We worry what our world would look like then, so believe a level of unity in the industry is the way forward.