The House yesterday approved the amendments proposed to the Copyright Act. The amendments are seeking to bring the Act in compliance with international obligations emanating from international legislation.
Setting yesterday’s debate in motion, Nationalist MP Edwin Vassallo said that the amendments proposed to the Copyright Act are strengthening the protection afforded to artists and performers. However, there is a discrepancy between the copyright legislation and reality, Mr Vassallo asserted. In reality, performers are not really being given what is adequately due to them by way of royalties.
It is important to strengthen the legal structures, but we must not fail to take into account what is really happening around us. Although money is being collected by the Performing Rights’ Society – a collecting society based in the United Kingdom – performers are facing certain difficulties in obtaining what is due to them. For instance, only performers who are members of this collecting society may receive the royalties due to them, Mr Vassallo highlighted.
Opposition spokesperson for Culture and Youths Owen Bonnici asserted that we must look at art not simply ‘for art’s sake’ but as a very important sector for the economy. We must be speaking of a creative industry and not of art simply as art.
Applauding the recent performances of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, Dr Bonnici said that he could not understand how the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts is allocated with the same amount of funds as the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra only.
Nationalist MP Charlo Bonnici tabled in the House a number of illegal DVDs that were bought from Valletta yesterday morning. DVDs included X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Crank 2 amongst others. The original DVDs of such films were not even present in the Maltese market.
The fight against piracy needs to be taken more seriously, Mr Bonnici said. He also mentioned the now celebrity court case involving the Swedish web site Pirate Bay and its’ four founding members whereby they have been given a one-year jail term and have to pay e3m in damages after operating this file sharing site on the net.
In his winding up speech Parliamentary Secretary for Revenues and Land Jason Azzopardi said that collecting societies are crucial. Dr Azzopardi said that apart from the performers, even the general public has certain rights. According to the Collecting Society Regulations, members of the public may demand information from the collecting society. The collecting society may not refrain from giving such information.
Replying to whether government is open to other collecting societies, Dr Azzopardi said that government ‘is not closed to the idea that there can be more than one collecting society’.
In his speech, Dr Azzopardi was clear and categorical saying that ‘piracy is theft’. The police who are entrusted with the responsibility of enforcing the copyright laws especially those laws which are criminal in nature, have a responsibility towards society in combating this illegal activity.
Mentioning the autonomy of the judicial from the legislative organs of the state and saying that he did not want to impinge on such an autonomy, Dr Azzopardi also made it a point to pronounce that at times our courts are being lenient in inflicting soft punishments to guilty persons. The courts are not sending out a clear message that piracy is theft and that whoever is found guilty of such offences will be given a harsh punishment.
Government and the Ministry of Finance is currently in the process of reviewing the punishments that can be inflicted upon guilty persons in the fight against piracy and will probably seek to raise the minimum punishment that can be given by the courts of law, Dr Azzopardi remarked.
The amendments were given a Second Reading and sent to Committee Stage. At Committee Stage, the House went through all the amendments in detail and tackled the various technical issues proposed in the amendments
With the assistance of an expert in the field, Dr Azzopardi replied to the questions brought forward by various members of the House. Opposition spokesperson for Sport Chris Agius asked whether lending of books or DVDs between two individuals was considered to be illegal under the Act. Dr Azzopardi said that a distinction must be made between what is done on a commercial basis and what is not commercial in nature. Dr Azzopardi said that the primary enactment provided for certain exceptions to the copyright rules and that every case has to be analysed on a case-by-case basis.