The new copyright bill in Singapore has a number of significant amendments
The proposed Copyright Bill (“Draft Bill”) in Singapore has been scheduled for second reading in September 2021. The current Copyright Act (Cap. 60, Rev. Ed. 2006), which has been in effect for fifteen years, will be replaced by the Draft Bill. The Draft Bill, in particular, appears to provide for better copyright protection for creators/performers of copyright works.
The following are some of the significant amendments in the Draft Bill:
1. The right to be identified
The new right to be identified permits creators and performers to be actively credited with their work’s creation, which means that anyone who uses a copyright work must clearly and prominently identify the work’s creator. This improves the copyright regime in favor of artists and performers, who previously only had the right to prevent the wrongful attribution of their copyright works to another party.
2. Some commissioned works have default first ownership of copyright.
Even if they were commissioned to create the works, creators of commissioned works will henceforth be the first owners of copyright as a result of this change. The commissioning parties, on the other hand, may contract out of this right. The copyright regime is strengthened in favor of creators of commissioned works as a result of this. However, there is still an exception to this default first ownership when certain works (photographs, portraits, engravings, sound recordings, or films) are commissioned, as well as works created by workers or journalist-employees.
3. Commercial dealings with devices or services connected to illicit set-top boxes audio-visual content
This new right aims to promote the use of copyrighted works obtained from lawful sources. Copyright owners, for example, can now 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) with the commercially significant purpose of facilitating access to copyright infringing works. In fact, in Singapore, telecommunications services are already encouraging the adoption of legal set-top boxes by offering discounts to new customers who trade in their illicit set-top boxes for legal set-top boxes.
4. The right to charge license fees for sound recordings that have been commercially released
Under the Draft Bill, sound recording companies now have a new authority to receive license fees for commercially released sound recordings. CMOs (Collective Management Organizations) can also help with this.
5. Copyright works may be used for computational data analysis.
Since 2014, the United Kingdom has had copyright exceptions for text and data mining. A similar right is provided by this new right under the Draft Bill. This statutory right cannot be curtailed by contract, according to the Draft Bill.
6. Expiration date for unpublished works protection
The Draft Bill also includes the following provisions for copyright protection for unpublished works:
Films and anonymous or pseudonymous works will be protected for 70 years after the author dies (if the author is identified within 70 years after the end of the year in which the work is made), and unpublished authorial works (i.e. works with known authors) will be protected for 70 years after the author dies (if the author is identified within 70 years after the end of the year in which the work is made).
This modification brings the copyright system closer together, as it previously gave unpublished works eternal copyright protection while limiting the length of copyright protection for published works.
Conclusion
The Draft Bill is exciting reading for copyright practitioners since it clearly aims to reform and update our copyright law to meet the demands of copyright owners. The Bill is likely to take effect in late 2021, and it will undoubtedly have a significant impact on Singapore’s copyright law development.
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