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MR. WILFORD
MISS DEAS
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I would certainly
like to discontin
with R.T. V.
who are
(eis 4) London 6) нік
ཀ
your
31
Directors?
A.R.
Flag. A
Hong Kong Copyright
I attach a draft submission about copyright in Hong
Kong. For a variety of reasons the 1956 United Kingdom
Copyright Act has not yet been extended to the Colony.
Hong Kong operates most unsatisfactorily on earlier versions
of the United Kingdom Act, with the result that pirating of
books, records etc. is widespread and this is much resented,
not least in this country. The extension of the Act to Hong
Kong, varied merely to suit local conditions, is a relatively
simple operation and would be noncontentious. The problem is,
however, bedevilled by an issue concerning copyright of T.V.
programmes.
2.
!
Briefly the issue is that in 1957 the Government of
Hong Kong gave RTV (Hong Kong) an exclusive licence to operate
a wired TV service. This was Hong Kong's first TV service.
Included in the company's licence was a provision that they had
the exclusive right to relay contemporaneously (and therefore
in full) the product of any other TV broadcasting station.
(In the U.K. Rediffusion have this right in respect of both
BBC and ITV programmes but the situation is different to the
extent that Rediffusion do not in this country originate a
competing programme of their own as they do in Hong Kong).
The licence was, of course, subject to the law of copyright as
it currently existed in Hong Kong. In 1957 there was no
other TV station in Hong Kong so it seems fair to infer that
/the Government's
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