Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988: Sporting Events

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, not only noble Lords here but all sorts of other people will be watching this debate this afternoon, including racing as a whole, racecourses, owners, trainers, jockeys, honest punters and—yes, there are plenty—honest bookmakers, because it covers such an important threat to the revenues keeping them in business. Following the noble Viscount’s wonderful speech, I certainly do not want to drone on, but let me give a brief lay man’s account of what is going on here.

Go to a racecourse now and you can hardly miss the drones; there are perhaps eight or 10 of them flying about all over the course, so what is going on? As the author of a work of racing fiction—Counter Coup, in all good bookshops now, as it has been for the last seven years—I would not dare dream up so implausible a plot as the reality of what is going on. In a nutshell, what is going on is tech-assisted cheating. These days, you do not have to put a bet on a horse before a race starts; you can back horses “in running” as it is called. When drones come in, they can transmit pictures of a race seconds before they appear on conventional television.

So, Joe Bloggs is sitting at home in front of his TV. He sees the favourite lengths in front coming to the last and puts a big bet on at short odds that it will win. More fool him, because his drone counterpart is a few seconds ahead and he knows that the horse just fell at the last. Therefore, he can lay that horse for as much cash as he wants with no danger or difficulty of losing his money. He lays the horse and counts his winnings. Who loses? It is the punter who backed the favourite and racecourses which do not have copyright in the pictures and therefore cannot get any money from the pictures of the product they are supplying. There is less money for racing, less money for owners—I am an owner, so I can say that with some bitterness—and less money for trainers, jockeys and legitimate bookmakers, apart from a handful of often illegal bookmakers who may be in on the game.

This is not legitimate betting, to which I certainly have no objection. This is foul play, and it must be stopped. One way of doing so would be to give the racecourses copyright in all pictures so that at least the droners paid up out of their ill-gotten gains. Another would be to make such filming of sporting events a criminal offence. The Government will no doubt come to their own conclusions as to which route is the easiest. What is important is that they do not conclude that both routes are difficult and therefore do absolutely nothing about this scandal of legalised fraud.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I seek your Lordships’ permission. I had no intention whatever of being discourteous to my noble friend but equally I was trying not to be discourteous to the Minister after I spoke in the debate in the Chamber on the humanitarian issues in Afghanistan. With the agreement of the Committee and of the Chair, I will hand over now and speak in the gap, just to emphasise the important point in chapter 4.32 of the Companion that speakers should be present for the opening speech. I sincerely apologise to the Committee for that being difficult on account of the other debate overrunning. I will give way to my noble friend, who will speak now, and with the agreement of the Committee I will speak in the gap.