Copyright law in Hong Kong to a great extent follows the English model. The Basic Law of Hong Kong, its constitutional document, guarantees a high degree of autonomy and continuation of laws previously in force after its reunification with Mainland China. Hong Kong therefore continues to maintain a separate intellectual property regime from Mainland China. Article 139 and 140 of the Basic Law specifically deal with the protection of copyright in Hong Kong.
Article 140 The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall, on its own, formulate policies on culture and protect by law the achievements and the lawful rights and interests of authors in their literary and artistic creation. See more on https://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/pda/en/basiclawtext/chapter_6.html
Open-qualification system
Apart from general substantive criteria, for Copyright to subsist in a work, the statutory requirements with respect to qualification for copyright protection in s 177 must be met. Hong Kong has broad copyright protection thanks to its open-qualification system under Copyright Ordinance ss177, 177 and 178. It means that no requirements of nationality or other status of the author, or of the work's place of first publication need to be satisfied before a work is eligible for protection. Works transmitted over Internet, radio, televisions are all under protection ). Nonetheless, Copyright Ordinance s 180 allows the Chief Executive to deny or limit copyright protection for works originating in non-reciprocating jurisdictions.
Copyright Ordinance
The Copyright Ordinance, which became effective on 27th June 1997, is Hong Kong's first purely local copyright law. However, the Copyright Act in 1956 of the United Kingdom will continue to apply to the protection of copyright of works created before 27th June 1997.
Categories of copyright works
Copyright Ordinance s 2 protects 9 categories of copyrighted works:
literary works
dramatic works
musical works
artistic works
sound recordings
films
broadcasts
cable programmes
typographical arrangement of published editions
Criteria of claiming copyright protection
In order to successfully claim for copyright protection, 3 criteria must be satisfied: the subject matter must be a 'work'; the work must fall within 1 of the 9 categories stated in s.2 of the Hong Kong Copyright Ordinance; and the work must be original if the subject matter is a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work.
Duration of copyright
S.17 to 21 of the Copyright Ordinance deal with the duration of copyright works. The author of the work is deemed to be the person who creates the work. S.17 to states that the duration of copyright of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works is the life of the author plus 50 years, or 50 years from the end of the year in which the work was first created or made available to the public if the identity of the author is not known. Except for typographical arrangement of published editions, the duration of copyright in other works is also 50 years from certain events specified in the Copyright Ordinance. The duration of copyright in typographical arrangement of published editions is 25 years from the year of first publication, according to S.21 of the Copyright Ordinance.
Moral rights
The Hong Kong Copyright Ordinance Pt II Div IV recognizes the following two types of moral rights in favour of the author, director or commissioner of the work regardless of whether he is the owner of the copyright: Right to be identified as author or director ; and Right to object to derogatory treatment of work Copyright Ordinance s 92.
Controversies in criminalising the copying of materials
Controversial changes criminalising the copying of materials in the course of trade were introduced in 2000: insofar as they affect printed matter, these were quickly suspended following an outcry from educational groups and consumer groups. The suspension, provided in the Copyright Ordinance 2001, will expire on 31 July 2004. Hong Kong is currently unique in the common law world for treating copying infringing materials differently between printed and non-printed materials.
