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Following is a question by the Hon Emily Lau and a written reply by the Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology, Mr Joseph W P Wong, in the Legislative Council today (November 22):
QuestionĄG
In July this year, the Customs and Excise (C&E) Department launched the Youth Ambassador Against Internet Piracy Scheme, with an objective of mobilising the 200,000 members of youth uniformed organisations to serve as the web police and report to the C&E Department information on suspected copyright-infringing seed files on the Internet. It has been reported that, in order to encourage its members to make reports proactively, a uniformed organisation offers a music player to any youngster who has made the target number of reports. In this connection, will the Executive Authorities inform this Council:
(a) of the number of reports received so far through the Scheme, and the number of those which have been substantiated;
(b) whether they have set up a mechanism to ensure that the Scheme is not abused by youngsters; if so, of the details of the mechanism;
(c) whether they have assessed the effectiveness of awards in encouraging reports, and if the practice of offering awards to youngsters who have made reports of others is conductive to their developing positive values; and
(d) whether they know the countries and cities with similar schemes; if so, of the details of such schemes?
AnswerĄG
Madam President,
We have been adopting a multi-pronged approach in combating Internet piracy. Our laws on intellectual property rights are regularly reviewed and updated to ensure effective protection of copyright in the digital environment. On the law enforcement front, the Customs and Excise Department (C&ED) monitors infringing activities on the Internet round-the-clock and acts on suspected cases immediately. On the public education front, we have been working closely with copyright owners and various sectors of the community to promote public awareness of the importance of intellectual property protection, including sustained efforts to cultivate a culture of respect for intellectual property rights (IPR) in the digital environment. This year, we have intensified our public education programmes in the latter respect, with young people as a particular target. These include broadcasting anti-Internet piracy messages through radio and television, organising school visits, providing a hyperlink to IPR messages at search engine websites, and launching the Youth Ambassador Against Internet Piracy Scheme (herein after referred to as the "Youth Ambassador" Scheme) etc.
The "Youth Ambassador" Scheme aims at inculcating in the minds of the participating young people positive values that fortify respect for IPR in the digital environment. By enlisting the support of the "Youth Ambassadors" in reporting infringing activities on peer-to peer (P2P) networks, the Scheme also facilitates C&ED and copyright owners in combating such activities at source. In collaboration with 11 youth uniformed organisations, we encourage their members to notify the C&ED via a designated web page when they detect any suspected infringing BitTorrent (BT) seeds on local discussion forum websites while surfing on the Internet. After preliminary vetting, C&ED will forward the relevant information to representatives of local copyright owners. If it is confirmed that the BT seeds can lead to sharing of infringing copyright files, the owners' representatives will request the webmasters of the concerned discussion forums to delete the relevant messages and the BT seeds posted therein. This helps contain the circulation of infringing BT seeds on the Internet.
The information relayed by the "Youth Ambassadors" covers only the location of the webpages containing the infringing BT seeds so that the webmasters can effectively remove the seeds. The notification process does not involve the use of any technical measure to detect or monitor the activities of other Internet users. Nor does the information reveal the identity of any Internet users.
To show his support for the Scheme, a copyright owner offered a gift as an incentive to members of a participating youth organisation during the pilot stage of the "Youth Ambassador" Scheme. No similar award measures have been offered by copyright owners since the official inauguration of the Scheme.
My replies to the specific questions at (a) to (d) are as follows:
(a) Since the launching of the Scheme on July 19, 2006, C&ED has received 635 notifications from the "Youth Ambassadors". After initial vetting (which includes eliminating cases not pursuable for reasons such as invalid links), C&ED passes on the information (i.e. the location of the discussion forum websites where the suspected infringing BT seeds are found) to the relevant copyright owners. Up till now, the copyright owners have, on the basis of the notifications received, issued 129 letters to the concerned webmasters, thus enabling the latter to remove the BT seeds from the websites effectively.
(b) Prior to the implementation of the Scheme, C&ED has provided training sessions about the intellectual property laws in Hong Kong and the notification mechanism for trainers of the 11 youth uniformed organisations so that they could give proper guidance to their youth members. Should any "Youth Ambassador" or his/her trainers have questions about the Scheme, C&ED stands ready to provide the necessary assistance. So far, we have not come across any instance which suggests that the Scheme has been abused.
(c) The main purposes of the "Youth Ambassador" Scheme are to enhance awareness of the importance of respect for IPR amongst young people, and to encourage them to report suspected infringing activities to the law enforcement authority so as to help combat Internet piracy. Sharing infringing copyright files on the Internet is unlawful. Encouraging young people to report unlawful activities to the law enforcement authorities carries a positive message in its own right. Although we have not, since the implementation of the Scheme, offered any awards based on the number of notifications received, more and more "Youth Ambassadors" have spontaneously come forward and provided information to C&ED, thereby paving the way for curbing the circulation of infringing BT seeds on the Internet. This reflects that the Scheme has successfully enhanced their understanding of the importance of IPR protection and fortified their respect for IPR. Hence, we believe that the effectiveness of the Scheme is not dependent on the offer of awards.
(d) We are not aware of any other places which run a programme similar to the "Youth Ambassador" Scheme.
Ends/Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Issued at HKT 12:16
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