The government has postponed the Legislative Council debate on the controversial copyright amendment bill - but has stopped short of demands for the change in the law to be shelved completely which are now coming from pro-government lawmakers and the pan-democrats.
The three- to four-week delay, announced by Commerce and Economic Development Secretary Greg So Kam-leung yesterday, casts doubt on whether the bill, which makes all copyright infringement a criminal offence, will be approved by the end of the Legco session in mid-July.
It followed a request from the Legco House Committee to postpone the second and third readings of the bill, originally due at a full council meeting on Wednesday, after lawmaker Albert Chan Wai-yip of the pro-democracy group People Power filed more than 1,300 amendments.
Insisting the bill would not hinder freedom of speech, So said: 'I hope that during this [postponement], the bureau and the lawmakers can communicate more, to find ways to improve our protection of copyright.'
Lawmaker Tam Yiu-chung, chairman of the Beijing-loyalist Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, met So yesterday, a day after he said the bill should be redrawn to address public concerns. Campaigners have dubbed the bill the 'Article 23 of the internet', after the controversial national security legislation which was shelved in 2003 after huge protests.
It is feared a catch-all approach to copyright infringement could see, for example, people who modify copyrighted material for political parody end up in court.