PUBLISHED : Sunday, 13 December, 2015, 2:30am
UPDATED : Sunday, 13 December, 2015, 2:56am
Ada Leung, director of intellectual property, expects "common sense" enforcement. Photo: Bruce Yan
Sharing a photo of your daughter dressed up as Elsa from Frozen or your top-notch performance of a Jacky Cheung Hok-yau song at your wedding on social media with friends will not send you to jail under the new copyright bill, the intellectual-property chief has promised.
But the lead-up to the resumed second reading of the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2014 on Wednesday will not see inclusion of the three amendments - fair use, user-generated content and contract override - proposed by pan-democrats, said Ada Leung Ka-lai, director of intellectual property.
"The public's concerns have been very clear over the past week. But some of these are relatively new demands in terms of the whole legislative process ... They are expressed in a rather late stage of the legislative process," Leung told the Sunday Morning Post. "I don't think we can drastically revise our legislative package."
Leung said the proposal of fair use, as opposed to the current fair dealing, was raised quite late in the process.
"This package is the best we should do at this point of time. But this doesn't mean we should stop our law from being under review," she said.
"We have been debating this for almost 10 years. If we keep adding new issues to this round of legislation, we will never be able to begin the next round."
But the past week's debate on the bill has once again exposed people's distrust in the Leung Chun-ying government.
READ MORE: Hong Kong copyright law would 'respect freedom of expression', official says
"It's very sad to know and to hear that," Ada Leung said.
"I hope they put aside political differences and focus on a bill that will enhance our copyright protection."
She said derivative material based on copyrighted works would be exempted from criminal and civil liabilities if it was created for the purposes of parody, satire, caricature, pastiche, reporting or commenting on current events or quotations.
However, what citizens are most concerned about may be whether they will follow in the footsteps of the chief executive and fall into a legal trap.
She maintained that his recent action of uploading a video of himself singing a song by Beyond at the third-anniversary party of the pro-government Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong would not breach the new law as it can be exempted as a "report on current events".
Leung applied for a licence from copyright holders after it was pointed out that he might be in breach of the copyright law. Ada Leung said licences for performing copyrighted works should be acquired from copyright owners regardless, otherwise it could constitute civil liability. "But many venues already have these licences covered."
If you only shared a photo or video to your "friends" on social media, and not publicly, Leung said this did not constitute "communicating to the public" as prescribed in the bill, where criminal sanctions have been added against unauthorised communication of copyrighted works to the public.
Leung stressed that only unauthorised communication of copyrighted works for a profit or reward and to the extent that it prejudiced or even substituted for the original work would constitute criminal offence.
"We need the evidence from copyright owners," she said.
And as for those who were worried about posting photos of their daughter dressing up as a Disney princess, Leung said an implied licence was in place to allow those wearing these costumes to take photos or videos.
"We have to apply the law with common sense," she said. "People are worrying too much."
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1890526/hongkongers-urged-not-fear-new-copyright-bill
