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The Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology, Mr John Tsang, today (February 5) called on people to give their views on the consultation document on the Copyright Ordinance.
The Government released the consultation document on the review of certain provisions of the Copyright Ordinance on December 9, 2004, for a two-month consultation. The Commerce, Industry and Technology Bureau today held a public forum to solicit public views on the issues covered in the consultation document.
Speaking at the forum, Mr Tsang said the Copyright Ordinance was closely related to our daily lives.
"As the relevant policies and regulations carry wide social implications, the Government fully recognises the need to listen to the public views as well as the importance of striking a delicate balance between the interests of copyright work owners and those of the community as a whole," he said.
The Government will take into account all the views collected when drawing up proposals to further improve Hong Kong's legislative regime for the protection of copyright.
He called on people to send their views and comments to the bureau on or before February 15, 2005, the deadline of the consultation exercise.
In response to remarks that the sharing of copyright work on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks should not be penalised if no commercial interests were involved, Mr Tsang stressed that people's creative efforts needed to be protected in order to maintain an environment where creativity and business could flourish.
"Creativity is an important element in the development of a knowledge-based economy. We will continue to make every effort to combat infringing activities. Any person who engages in infringing activities should be subject to civil or even criminal liability," Mr Tsang added.
He urged Internet users to respect the intellectual property rights in the cyber world.
The consultation document on the Copyright Ordinance sets out main issues related to end-user criminal liability, copyright exemption and a number of other aspects in the Copyright Ordinance which require a review including end-user liability associated with parallel imported copyright items, defence for employees against end-user criminal liability, circumvention of technological measures for copyright protection, rental rights for films and proof of infringing copies of computer programme in end-user piracy cases.
It is available at websites of the Commerce and Industry Branch of the Commerce, Industry and Technology Bureau (www.info.gov.hk/cib), Intellectual Property Department (www.ipd.gov.hk) and the HKSAR Government (www.info.gov.hk).
Ends/Saturday, February 5, 2005
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