China News Service, Hong Kong, November 24th (Reporter Wang Jiacheng) The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government held a press conference on the 24th to announce the launch of a public consultation on updating Hong Kong's copyright system. The consultation period will last for three months and will end on February 23 next year.
The Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, Yau Tenghua, stated that the National 14th Five-Year Plan was first proposed to support the development of Hong Kong into a regional intellectual property trading center. However, Hong Kong’s copyright system has been lagging behind the international for 10 years, and now is the right time to re-launch it. Review of copyright legislation.
He pointed out that the copyright system is an important part of the intellectual property system. On the one hand, it can effectively protect the private property rights of original works. On the other hand, it allows the public to use copyright works reasonably. It is very important for encouraging creativity, scientific and technological development, and promoting and disseminating knowledge. Important is the cornerstone of the development of a knowledge-based economy.
Yau Tenghua said that Hong Kong has always been committed to perfecting the copyright system to meet the needs of development, and strive to strike a proper balance between the legal rights of copyright owners and users, and it is in the best interests of Hong Kong as a whole.
According to the consultation document, this legislative proposal mainly covers a number of areas, including granting copyright owners a technology-neutral exclusive communication right; cooperating with the introduction of the above exclusive communication right to establish criminal liability for related infringements; and adding a parody The use of copyrighted works for purposes such as ridicule, ridicule and imitation, commenting on current affairs, etc., provides copyright exemptions.
Yau Tenghua stated that the legislative proposals contained in the relevant bill submitted to the Legislative Council in 2014 are the results and broad consensus reached by the SAR government, the Legislative Council, copyright owners, online service providers and copyright users after years of discussion. , Which balances the rights and interests of different stakeholders.
Therefore, for this public consultation document, the government proposes to use this as a starting point to update Hong Kong's copyright system.
(over)