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Following is a transcript (English portion) of the Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology, Mr Joseph W P Wong, speaking to the media after the first and second reading of the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2006 at the Legislative Council today (March 29):
Reporter: How would you address the concerns between the schools and also the publishers?
SCIT: This is always a very difficult area. On the one hand, we recognise that the book publishers, particularly the text book publishers, would like to safeguard their copyrights. But on the other hand, we also recognise that in this modern age, teaching and learning have become very interactive, have become very much project-based. It is therefore important that we do not do anything which will frustrate the teaching and learning process ....., if necessary, making limited copies of certain text books for teaching and learning purposes. So, whilst we exempt non-profit making and government subvented schools from the proposed criminal liability, we also recognise that the Government should play a more active role to help facilitate these schools and the publishers to reach certain licensing agreement so that these schools can legitimately photocopy or reproduce a certain number of text books or teaching materials of course at a fee payable to the publishers.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion)
Ends/Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Issued at HKT 13:17
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