They cover business end-user criminal liability, circumvention of technology measures for copyright protection and parallel importation of copyright works.

The Bureau said, however, that it will continue to liaise with stakeholder groups in developing the proposals before tabling the amendment at the Legislative Council early next year.

One idea contained in the proposals was to introduce a new business end-user criminal offence for significant infringements involving copying for distributing or distributing infringing copies of newspaper, magazine, periodical and book works. It was also proposed to specify numerical perimeters for the "safe harbour" of the offence within which the infringing acts will not attract criminal liability.

After considering public concerns, the Government announced that the proposed criminal offence should not cover casual or ad-hoc copyright infringements for business end-users because this already attracts civil liability. It therefore proposes to limit the proposed business end-user copying-distribution offence for copyright works published in the four types of printed works to regular or frequent infringements only.

The Hong Kong authorities additionally revealed that they intend to lay down the following numerical perimeters for "safe harbour":

• For copyrighted works in newspapers, magazines and periodicals (excluding academic journals), the proposed criminal offence will not apply if the number of infringing copies made for distribution or distributed does not exceed 1,000 copies within any 14-day period; and,
• For copyrighted works in books (including academic journals), the proposed criminal offence will not apply if the total retail value of the infringing copies made for distribution or distributed within a 180-day period does not exceed $8,000.

In its preliminary proposals, the Government suggested that if a body corporate or a partnership committed an act attracting any business end-user criminal offence, the director(s) of the body corporate or the partner(s) of the partnership would be equally liable in the same case unless there is evidence showing the partners have not authorised the infringing act. The Government accepted, however, that it may have been too onerous to impose a criminal liability on all directors and partners.

Accordingly, it has proposed to limit the scope of the proposed criminal liability to cover only those directors, partners or people that conduct chief executive functions.

It also revealed plans in its preliminary proposals to introduce a new criminal offence covering commercial dealing in devices, products or components to circumvent effective technological measures for copyright protection applied to a copy of copyright work, or the provision of commercial service to enable or facilitate the circumvention of such effective technological measures.

However, after considering feedback from the computer game industry and user groups, it proposed to narrow the scope of the proposed criminal sanction so it will not cover those copyright protection technological measures that are applied to a copy of a copyright work embodied in a physical article and also have the effect of controlling market segmentation through area code restriction.

The proposed criminal sanction will therefore only apply to physical copies of computer games protected by effective technological measures which do not have an area code restriction function.

Regarding parallel importation of copyrighted works, while user groups in general have demanded further liberalisation of parallel imports, copyright owners in the film, music and publication industries have strongly objected to any shortening or removing of the 18-month criminal liability period.

The Government has therefore proposed to further liberalise parallel importation by:

• Removing the civil and criminal liability pertaining to the importation and possession for use of parallel imports of copyright works by all business end-users except those for commercial dealing purposes; and;
• Reducing the period during which parallel imports would attract criminal liability to nine months after public release.