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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Mr Gregory So, on the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2014 at a media session in the Legislative Council Complex today (March 3):
Reporter: Mr So, do you agree with Gladys Li that the Government is being dictated by copyright owners over this copyright bill? And second it is pretty certain that the Copyright Bill would not be passed tonight or tomorrow ...?
Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development: I will answer your first question first: is the Government being dictated by the copyright owners. The answer is no. The Government has the responsibility from the public interest standpoint to table a bill after many rounds of consultations having gone through. And then we went through the Bills Committee and have fully deliberated in 16 months and 24 meetings. About 40 hours were spent in the Bills Committee and then we tabled the bill on the floor of the Council. And over 80 hours have been spent here. The due process has been followed. And there are exemptions proposed in this bill that would benefit the netizens. And these are in a lot of ways adverse or curtail the right of the copyright owners. If we are dictated by the copyright owners, this bill would not have introduced these exemptions which would curtail their rights. So from this you can see that the Government really has the goodwill to table a bill that would be to the benefit of the community, one dedicated to needs of various stakeholders.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Thursday, March 3, 2016
Issued at HKT 22:50
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