End
(b)
(c)
27
The public can find out which bodies may legally collect music royalties from copyright lawyers or from the Intellectual Property Department.
It would be impractical, costly and cumbersome for the Government to establish a mechanism incorporating all royalties charged by the relevant bodies and collecting such royalties from users of copyright music on a unified basis. There is no international precedent in this regard. Furthermore, even if such a mechanism was set up, the Government could not debar individuals from pursuing their rights separately, or in groups, as this would put Hong Kong in breach of the international copyright standard.
Revision of mathematics textbooks for sixth form
Following is a question by the Hon Cheung Bing-leung and a written reply by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Joseph Wong, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
On 27 October 1995, an amount of $54.4 million was approved by the Finance Committee of this Council for implementing Phase IV of the Incentive Award Scheme (the Scheme) for Chinese textbooks. Of this amount, some $13 million has been earmarked for publishers to produce Chinese Mathematics textbooks for the sixth- form for use by students in the 1998/99 academic year. However, it is learned that the Curriculum Development Council (CDC) is planning to revise the Mathematics syllabus of the sixth-form, and the revision is expected to be completed by 1998. Hence, the Mathematics syllabus may have already been revised by the time the new Chinese Mathematics textbooks for the sixth-form are available in September 1998, which will render the new textbooks useless and result in the incentive award of $13 million being wasted. In this regard, will the Government inform this Council:
(a)
why the Education Department has recommended the inclusion of Mathematics for the sixth-form in Phase IV of the Scheme when it has already known that the Mathematics syllabus will be revised shortly; and