Newsletter
DRAFT AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE 37 OF THE COPYRIGHT ACT
On business premises provided for non-specific people or transportation vehicles for the public such as hotels, hospitals or clinics, restaurants, cafes, department stores, wholesale stores, convenience stores, passenger cars and sightseeing buses, operators frequently communicate, by broadcasting system or loudspeaker, the radio programs and TV programs they have received for the direct listening or watching of the public. Such conduct is deemed rebroadcast (a kind of "public broadcast") or public performance as specified in the Copyright Act (hereinafter referred to as "secondary public broadcasting"). According to the provisions of the current Copyright Act, utilization of any work without prior authorization is likely to commit infringement and should be liable for criminal liabilities.
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) holds that such secondary public broadcasting is to utilize another's works in quantity, the utilizer is unable to know or control the utilized works in advance, the utilizer impossibly obtains license for each of the utilized works, the right holder only obtains limited economic interests in such secondary public broadcasting, and the criminal punishment is not required as the civil remedies should be adequate for copyright protection of works. By referring to Paragraph 2 of Article 11bis of the Berne Convention, which provides the conditions for a member country to exercise its exclusive rights to publicly communicate the content of a copyrighted work by loudspeaker or other apparatus for rebroadcast purpose, the IPO plans to amend Paragraph 6 of Article 37 of the Copyright Act by adding Items 2 and 3. The amendment will prescribe that any copyright dispute arising from communication of sound or image originally broadcasted is subject to civil remedies only and the criminal remedies will be excluded. In other words, copyright disputes relating to the issue of secondary public broadcasting only involve civil remedies, and will not incur any criminal liability.
The IPO held public hearings for collecting relevant opinions and should propose the draft amendment in the near future.