On 17 January 2019, the Singapore Ministry of Law and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore issued the Singapore Copyright Review Report (the Report), which proposes some of the critical amendments to the Singapore Copyright Act (the CA), following numerous rounds of public consultations in 2016 and 2017.
The goal of the proposed amendments is to make sure that the Singapore copyright regime keeps abreast of technological developments that have substantially changed how innovative works are created, dispensed and fed on. In this regard, the proposed amendments searching for to decorate creators’ rights and customers’ get entry to copyrighted works.
This note summarises the important thing proposed amendments within the Report.
The key proposed modifications that would fortify the creators’ rights are as follows:
1. Default possession of commissioned works
Currently, in which sure works are commissioned, the commissioning party is the default copyright owner. The Report proposes that the creators of creative works shall have the first possession of commissioned work until agreed in any other case.
2. The new right of attribution for authors and performers
At present, authors and performers do no longer have a right to be attributed underneath the CA. The Report proposes that authors and performers be attributed when their paintings or overall performance is utilized by others. However, this right will no longer be applied to positive works and performances together with a laptop programme or paintings created inside the course of employment.
The key proposed modifications that could enhance customers’ get entry to copyrighted works are:
1. New educational use exception
Teaching strategies have evolved past using traditional standardized textbooks and workbooks. The use of digital gear and on-line substances along with publications, blogs, and videos by way of academic institutions to train is now common.
The Report proposes a brand new cause-primarily based exception for academic uses by non-profit instructional institutions with a purpose to observe to on-line paintings this is reachable without the want of payment at the time of getting right of entry to.
2. New text and records mining exception
As the preliminary levels of textual content and information mining typically entails extracting or copying records from materials which can be included by means of copyright, textual content and facts mining dangers infringing at the copyright in these substances.
The Report proposes a new exception inside the CA which allows copying of copyrighted works for the functions of facts analysis to support the increase of the information analytics and massive records business sector. However, the user of the paintings should have had valid get entry to to the paintings within the first vicinity. Simply copying without evaluation could not be secure under the brand new exception.
Three. New exception relating to galleries, libraries, data, and museums
The Report proposes a brand new exception to permit museums and non-earnings galleries, non-profit libraries and non-profit information to make copies or perform audio-visible materials for the purposes of the exhibition if such materials are within the everlasting series of the organization. Copies of objects can also be made for the purpose of inclusion in the exhibition associated with publicity substances.
Other proposals within the Report include:
1. New magnificence licensing scheme for collective control enterprises (CMOS)
The Report proposes to introduce a class licensing scheme for CMOS, which is unregulated nowadays. The new scheme aims to assist creators who want to license their work and users who want price-effective access to works by way of facilitating copyright licensing transactions efficaciously. Any CMOS in Singapore might be robotically concern to this scheme in order to be administered by using IPOS. Further information on the licensing scheme and license situations may be announced at a later date.
2. Enforcement measures towards unauthorized get right of entry to content
During the 2016 public consultation duration, it turned into concluded that there was and is an occurrence of set-pinnacle boxes that enables access to audio-visual content material from unauthorized resources, regularly outside Singapore. However, copyright owners are not able to take any enforcement measures in opposition to the producers, importers, distributors or outlets of such set-pinnacle packing containers as these do not contain infringing content material per se.
The Report proposes that new legislative provisions can be brought to impose civil and crook liability on individuals who willfully make, import for sale, commercially distribute or sell such set-pinnacle bins or any other merchandise that similarly permit get entry to audio-visual content material from unauthorized assets.
