TNAG-0086-FCO40-122-Copyright-legislation-1968 — Page 63

"(c)

2.

The relevance of the first point is that, if paragraph (b) of the licence gave Rediffusion the exclusive right to maintain a relay service of programmes received in their television broadcast receiving station, the omission of section 40(3) of the

Copyright Act from the Order in Council and the inclusion of section 4(2) of the draft Ordinance would have the effect that

Rediffusion would be unable to relay any broadcast matter and

thus would effectively take away a right conferred on

Rediffusion by the licence. Moreover, as I understand it, the present proposed copyright legislation, in so far as it refers to television, is only one part of an exercise by the Hong Kong

Government to reorganise television in Hong Kong in a way which

will involve the cancellation of Rediffusion's licence on grounds

of public interest and the substitution of a narrower licence

with a view to establishing competition in wired television. Mr. Hobley argued that paragraph (b) of the licence did not give

Rediffusion the exclusive right to relay broadcast television the only exclusive rights were given by paragraph (b) - firstly, because the wording of paragraph (b) shows that these were limited to Rediffusion's own programmes and matter and, secondly, as paragraph (c) expressly gives a right to relay television

broadcasts from certain stations, that right should be deemed not to be given also by paragraph (b). Mr. Hobley said that it was accepted by the Hong Kong Government that paragraph (b)

gave an exclusive right to relay intermittently television

broadcasts. He thought that the inclusion of matter distributed from a station in antithesis to matter originated at

a station was intended to cover Rediffusion's own relay by wire

of events in Hong Kong.

3. Mr. Hobley has sent me a note of his argument on the

interpretation of the licence, a copy of which I attach. This,

in the main, seems to be directed to arguing that the licence did not confer a right similar to a right to property and was, therefore, capable of being taken away by or under legislation.

It does not seem to me to matter how one describes the right conferred on Rediffusion by the licence; it was clearly subject to enactments of the Hong Kong legislature and, so far as copy-

right is concerned, contains a declaration to that effect.

4. I regret that I cannot agree with the view expressed by Mr. Hobley as to the interpretation of paragraph (b) of the

licence, except as to the licence being subject to the law of

Hong Kong. In my view, the correct interpretation of that

paragraph is that it gave Rediffusion the exclusive right to

maintain a service distributed from their stations by wire of any

television programmes and did not limit the service to their own originated programmes or to one programme. For such a

/limitation