Video Recordings Bill (Allocation of Time)

Certainly, there will have been prosecutions that were pending or in process when the defect, to echo the right hon. Gentleman's phrase, was discovered. Those will have had to be stopped once it became apparent that the law was no longer enforceable because of its non-notification. We have heard of a handful of putative—usually putative—appeals or claims for compensation against previous convictions, although all our advice tells us that such speculative attempts to further exploit the loophole are likely to be unsuccessful. Although the online environment is clearly the future and is going to grow, we must not be dismissive of the traditional boxed product. Only yesterday, senior executives from Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony were all reported as saying that digitally distributed product is unlikely to overtake the boxed product for some considerable time to come.