A plan to toughen Hong Kong’s copyright law has sparked protests from artists, who say it will stifle free speech, criminalize satire and threaten the city’s growing status as a major arts hub.
More than 1,700 artists have signed a petition urging the government to shelve proposed amendments to the Copyright Act, while pro-democracy lawmakers have launched a filibuster campaign to delay its passage into law.
“The proposed law will create an environment of fear and will lead artists to self-censor themselves,” performance artist and graphic designer Ger Choi (蔡芷筠), one of the organizers of the petition, said.
Some petitioners claim the amendments are politically motivated, after candidates in a March leadership poll were viciously — and humorously — parodied in social media including Facebook and various blogs.
Hong Kong chief executive-elect Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) was mocked as a comic-book super hero from the new Hollywood blockbuster The Avengers, while his rival, Henry Tang (唐英年), was depicted as former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the Iron Lady.
Artists fear that creating such commentary based on copyrighted material will be a criminal offense under the new law, planned at a time when the territory is cementing its status as a regional arts hub, illustrated by the glittering Hong Kong International Art Fair that opened on Thursday.
At present, copyright infringement occurs when the work causes significant damage to the copyright holder, but the government wants to broaden the rules to cover any reuse that could “affect prejudicially” the owner.
It also updates the law for the digital age by criminalizing “any unauthorized communication of copyright works” on the Internet.
Such moves are welcomed by some.
In April, the Hong Kong Motion Pictures Industry Association complained that pirated movie clips posted on the YouTube video sharing site resulted in losses of US$308 million.
However, others say that the amendments are heavy-handed and open to strict interpretations that could stifle creativity and erode the semi-autonomous territory’s cherished freedoms.
They are also dumbfounded at the government’s suggestion that artists should obtain consent from the copyright holder if they want to create a derivative work.
“Are they saying Duchamp should get permission from Da Vinci before he creates the Mona Lisa parody? We wouldn’t have seen the work if that was the case,” Choi said, referring to Marcel Duchamp’s Mona Lisa with a mustache parody.
“We wonder whether these bureaucrats come from Mars,” added the artist, who also sits on the government’s Arts Development Council.
Songwriter and film director Calvin Poon (潘源良) agreed that the territory — a regional powerhouse of cinema and pop music — needed modern copyright laws, but he said the bill threatened to throw the baby out with the bath water.
“If we don’t protect our intellectual property, we will be on the losing end eventually,” the winner of the Best Original Song prize at the recent Hong Kong Film Awards said. “Our copyright laws are outdated and reforms are needed ... The question is how we could promote freedom and at the same time make our laws on par with international standards.”
The Copyright Act already allows for “fair dealing” with a protected work for educational purposes or “criticism, review and news reporting,” as long as “sufficient acknowledgement” is made of the original material.
However, Choi said this was not enough.
“We want a clear exemption for secondary creation. We want a comprehensive review of the Copyright Act,” she said.
The government has promised to listen to the artists’ concerns, but it says the proposed legislation makes no mention of parody and will not place further limitations on artists’ freedom to create secondary works.
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
EXTRADITION FEARS: The legislative changes come five years after a treaty was suspended in response to the territory’s crackdown on democracy advocates Exiled Hong Kong dissidents said they fear UK government plans to restart some extraditions with the territory could put them in greater danger, adding that Hong Kong authorities would use any pretext to pursue them. An amendment to UK extradition laws was passed on Tuesday. It came more than five years after the UK and several other countries suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong in response to a government crackdown on the democracy movement and its imposition of a National Security Law. The British Home Office said that the suspension of the treaty made all extraditions with Hong Kong impossible “even if
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
RSS