Four days after radicals stormed its press conference, group says it favours an even stricter law but is willing to compromise
JENNIFER.NGO@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 17 December, 2015, 6:05pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 17 December, 2015, 6:05pm
Police officers stand guard after members of Civic Passion stormed last week’s meeting of the Hong Kong Copyright Alliance. Photo: Edward Wong
The Hong Kong Copyright Alliance held its rescheduled press conference this morning to oppose three amendments proposed by pan-democrats to a controversial copyright bill, after its meeting last Sunday was disrupted by a radical activist group.
The alliance, which expressed support for the bill, had to scrap its press meeting on December 13 after 10 members of Civic Passion turned up, causing a scuffle and prompting participants to walk out.
At the press conference this morning at the Shangri-La Hotel Kowloon in Tsim Sha Tsui, Sam Ho, managing director of the Hong Kong International Screen Association who was standing in for alliance spokesman Peter Lam Yuk-wah, said it was too late to make last-minute amendments to a bill that had already taken over a decade to formulate.
“We accept the government’s [copyright] bill with tears in our eyes,” said Ho, who said the alliance had hoped for an even stricter law but had agreed to compromise in order to pass the bill first.
“We are over a decade behind the rest of the world in copyright laws and it’s affecting our competitiveness [in the creative industry].”
Under the bill currently under debate in the Legislative Council, derivative material based on copyrighted works would be exempted from criminal and civil liability if used for parody, satire, caricature, pastiche or commentary on current events – but “sufficient acknowledgement” will still need to be provided.
Pan-democrats had asked for three amendments – fair use, user-generated content and contract override – to be included in the bill, which is in its second reading.
Ricky Fung Tim-chee, chief executive officer of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (Hong Kong Group) and a member of the alliance, said adding the three amendments would render the law “completely useless” and unable to protect copyrighted work.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1892462/hong-kong-copyright-alliance-accepts-controversial-bill
