Singapore introduces new Copyright Bill to both protect and provide access to works

                   (Picture: Singapore Ministry of Law)

By Emmanuel Legrand

Singapore's Ministry of Law has introduced in Parliament a new Copyright Bill for first reading, with the goal to have the new legislation implemented by November 2021.

  The bill is described as a way to "stay abreast of changes in how content is created, distributed, and used.” It will replace the current Copyright Act, and covers a wide range of issues, from assignment of rights to exemptions for educational and data mining purposes. The drafting of the bill follows consultation with stakeholders between 5 February 2021 to 8 April 2021 under the aegis of the Ministry of Law and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore. 

  "The Bill will restructure and reword the legislation in plain English, to enhance its clarity and accessibility. The Bill adopts a more intuitive, thematic structure and provides illustrations to show how provisions should be applied in particular situations. This will allow creators, users, and intermediaries to better understand how the law works to both protect and provide access to works," said the Ministry of Law.

  Key features include:

  > Granting creators and performers the right to be identified:
  Anyone who uses a work or performance in a way that causes it to be seen in public (for example, putting it online or publishing it) must now identify the creator of the work or performer of the performance in a clear and reasonably prominent manner. The Ministry of law says this new right to be identified "will accord creators and performers due respect and recognition for their creative efforts, as well as create more exposure for them, which may have a positive impact on the commercialisation of their works."

  > Granting creators default ownership of certain commissioned works:
  Creators of photographs, portraits, engravings, sound recordings and films will by default (unless otherwise agreed in a contract) be the first owner of copyright, even if they were commissioned to make those works, meaning that these creators "will enjoy the same position as creators of other types of commissioned works, such as songs, computer graphics or books."

  However, for sound recordings and films created by employees as part of their jobs, employers will now be the default first owner of copyright, in addition to literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works. This is because "the employers in such cases would benefit the most from default ownership and be the party most incentivised to create more works."

  
  > Deterring people from profiting off products or services which stream audiovisual content from  unauthorised sources:
  The new bill plans to "encourage consumption of copyright works from legitimate sources," by allowing rights-owners to sue "anyone who knowingly engages in commercial dealings (e.g. sell, offer for sale, distribute for  trade etc) with devices or services (such as set- top boxes or software applications), which have  the commercially significant purpose of facilitating access to copyright infringing works."

  > New equitable remuneration rights when sound recordings are broadcast or publicly performed:
  Sound recording companies will have a new right to collect license fees for the broadcast or public performance of commercially published sound recordings (neighbouring rights. This license fee may be administered and collected by collective management organisations (CMOs).

  > New permitted use of works for computational data analysis:
  Copyright works, if lawfully accessed, may be used for computational data analysis, such as sentiment analysis, text and data mining, or training machine learning, without having to seek the permission of each copyright owner, subject to certain conditions and safeguards to take into account rights-owners’ commercial interests.

  > New permitted use of online materials for educational purposes by non-profit schools:
  Schools and students will be able to "use freely-available resources from the internet for educational uses, without having to seek permission from each copyright owner, as long as the source is acknowledged, and the date of access is cited." Students may reproduce webpages, images and videos from the internet for assignments, if those works are free to access (i.e. without payment) on the internet.

  > Setting an expiry date for protection of unpublished works:
 All works, whether published or not, will enjoy a limited period of protection, which is of 70 years since the date of publication. Previously, unpublished works would enjoy perpetual copyright protection. The Ministry of Law said this change is "intended to encourage creators to commercialise their works and facilitate public access to the knowledge and creative expressions contained in their works."

  > Strengthening general “fair use” permitted use:
  "Fair-dealing" was introduced in Singapore copyright law in 2004. The new bill proposes to change the wording from "fair-dealing" to “fair use”, which is more commonly known. Users will be able to use this general permitted use "in a broad range of situations, including when their use of a work is fair but is not permitted under a specific permitted use in the Act."

  > Facilitating the work of galleries, libraries, archives, and museums:
  Public cultural heritage institutions such as galleries, libraries, archives and museums will be assured that they would not be inadvertently infringing copyright when engaging in activities that are required to support their functions such as making copies for administrative purposes like preservation, internal record-keeping and cataloguing.

  > Adjusting existing provisions for users with print disabilities:
  Organisations which help persons with print disabilities to convert works into accessible formats, when a new accessible format copy of the work is not available, will no longer need to pay license fees to the rights-owner. "This will allow persons with print disabilities to avoid double-payment, as often they would have already purchased a normal print copy for it to be converted," explained the Ministry of Law.

  > Facilitating the dissemination of information/materials by the government to the public:
  Materials held by the Government or public agencies which are provided to the public can now be copied and further made available, without infringing copyright, when the use is to facilitate the public interest reasons for why they have been made public.

  > Protecting certain exceptions from being restricted by contracts:
  Users will have more certainty as to whether they can still rely on a permitted use under the new Copyright Act if the terms of a contract seek to exclude or restrict the permitted use.

  > Strengthening the copyright ecosystem with new class licensing scheme for collective management organisations:
  CMOs will be regulated by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore and will have to comply with minimum standards on transparency, governance, accountability and efficiency. Penalties will be imposed on CMOs and/or their officers who breach such standards. "This will benefit both members of CMOs (such as songwriters and lyricists) as well as users who take licenses from CMOs, and contribute to building a fair and efficient copyright ecosystem," said the Ministry of Law.

  The complete bill is available here.