US still waiting for Hong Kong to catch up on copyright law as 10-year stalemate continues
US Deputy Consul General in Hong Kong says intellectual property law must be updated for city to thrive
The controversial copyright bill will be shelved if it is not passed by next Friday, commerce minister Greg So Kam-leung warned yesterday in an ultimatum for pan-democrat lawmakers to stop their filibustering.
If the bill – which sceptical internet users and pan-democrats see as a threat to freedom of expression – is shelved, it will be the second time in four years that the government has failed to get a copyright bill through the Legislative Council after a decade of discussion on the issue. Debate on the bill has been adjourned five times since December.
So said he was not bowing to pressure from pan-democrats and internet users. He said that there was still time for all lawmakers to scrutinise the bill and approve it in the Legco meeting scheduled to start on March 2.
“If it cannot be approved next week, that’s the end of it,” he said.
“We are not kneeling down, we are just taking the big picture into account, as there are more than 20 bills in the backlog and we have spent, or wasted, much time on the bill, so enough is enough.”
The government sees the bill as necessary to align Hong Kong with global standards of intellectual property protection. But critics have dubbed it “Internet Article 23”, a reference to the Basic Law provision on national security legislation.
