BOARD OF TRADE
INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY AND COPYRIGHT DEPARTMENT
25 Southampton Buildings, LONDON W.C.2
Telegrams: Patoff, London, W.C.2
Telephone: 01-405 8721, ext. 110
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IPCD 36862/2
Your Ref: HKK 16/2
A W Gaminara Esq
Hong Kong Dept
Foreign & Commonwealth Office London SW 1
Dear Gaminara
30 June 1970
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COPYRIGHT LEGISLATION
HONG KONG
Thank you for your letter of 23 June. You may think the following points relevant to the memorandum.
Paras. 2(1) and 12(2). Certain foreign copyright laws, eg that of Germany, give broadcasters the right at least to remuneration when their programmes are relayed by wire. The Council of Europe agreement on the protection of television broadcasts of 1960 provides (Article 1) that broadcasting organisations shall enjoy "the right to authorise or prohibit
the
diffusion of such broadcasts to the public by wire". We could not have accepted this in the United Kingdom without legis- lation, and hence a reservation was allowed for in the Convention. This we have made. It is however, I think, true that no Commonwealth country gives this right.
Para. 13. As I read the judgments in the Privy Council, they decided that the Courts could not interfere with deliberations of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, even if the legislation proposed by the Council would, if enacted, be unlawful and contrary to Hong Kong's powers. The Hong Kong Government appears to have conceded that, for the purposes of the cause of action summons, the court could assume that the proposed Ordnance would be repugnant. This point was not therefore argued at all; however in his dissenting judgment Lord Morris said "there is much more than a prospect of repugnancy" (between the proposed Hong Kong Ordnance and the Copyright Act);
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