Copyright Ordinance
1. The long awaited Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2006 was gazetted on 17th March 2006 and had its’ First Reading in the Legislative Council on 29th March 2006. Some of the major proposals of the Bill are as follows:-
a. The business end-user criminal liability for the use of infringing copies of copyright works in respect of computer programmes, movies, television dramas and musical recordings will be made permanent.
b. A new business end-user criminal offence of " making for distribution or distributing infringing copies of a book, a magazine, a periodical or a newspaper on a regular or frequent basis ". Educational establishments which are non-profit making and subvented by the Government are exempted. There are also statutory defences which are (i) the user made request for a licence but failed to receive a timely response; (ii) the user could not obtain commercially available copies and could not obtain a licence on reasonable commercial terms; and (iii)
