Singapore introduces new copyright law
Singapore’s Copyright Act came into force on Sunday, 21 November, updating the country’s copyright regime to take into account technological developments in recent years.
Passed in Singapore’s Parliament in September 2021, the new regime replaces the old copyright law, which was last updated in 2006. According to a joint announcement from the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore and the Ministry of Law, the Act “strengthens the rights of creators and performers”.
The release added: “New rights and remedies have been put in place to reward and recognise the creative efforts and contributions of creators and performers, so as to enable them to get more exposure and more opportunities to commercialise their works.”
Under the new law, content creators are the default copyright owners, including for all types of commissioned content, apart from where it is employee-created content. Previously, content creators were not the copyright owners for commissioned photographs, portraits, engravings, sound recordings, or films.
“Regardless of copyright ownership, commissioning parties can continue to use the work for the purpose for which it was commissioned (eg couples can continue using their commissioned wedding photos for their personal use),” said the release.
Previously, creators and performers did not have a right to be identified whenever their works or performances were used and only had a right to prevent false identification. Now, anyone who uses an authorial work or a performance in public must identify its creator or performer unless their identity is unknown.
The new law also seeks to tackle infringement, while encouraging the consumption of copyright works from authorised sources.
Unauthorised streaming
Under the old law, there was no provision specifically targeted at imposing liability for copyright infringement on commercial dealers of products or services that stream audio-visual content from unauthorised sources.
Now, copyright owners may sue anyone who knowingly engages in commercial dealings with devices or services that have a limited (or no) commercially significant purpose or use besides facilitating access to copyright-infringing work.
Additionally, the new law also contains new exceptions to copyright owners’ rights, to ensure copyright works are reasonably available for use by the general public.
One such exception allows the use of copyright-protected works for purposes such as text and data mining, data analytics, and training data for artificial intelligence (AI) programmes.
Singapore’s version allows for both commercial and non-commercial organisations with no limitation as to the purposes for which the text data mining is carried out. This exception cannot be excluded or modified by contract.
Another updated exception is that of educational uses by non-profit schools. Previously, there was a lack of clarity as to whether teachers and students were permitted to use digital materials from the internet.
The new educational exception permits schools and students of non-profit educational institutions to use freely-available resources from the Internet for educational purposes only, under certain conditions.
Finally, the general fair-use exception has also been updated. Previously, it existed as a general open-ended fair dealing exception. The new fair use exception incorporates the other existing specific fair dealing exceptions (and their specific accompanying conditions): reporting news, criticism or review, and research or study.
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