AN anti-piracy amendment bill was defended yesterday as necessary to uphold Hong Kong's trading reputation.
The legislation, which seeks to safeguard intellectual property rights, has been attacked by a major video chain store as likely to increase costs to consumers.
KPS Video Express brought a 20,000-signature petition of protest to a Legco committee examining the bill yesterday.
Deputy Secretary for Trade and Industry Alan Wong Chi-kong said: 'The fundamental principle of introducing the bill is to uphold protection of copyrights and of authors.
'Without the guarantee to earn the income they deserve, the authors will be discouraged from producing high-quality productions,' he said.
'Hong Kong's reputation on this aspect has long been good. But more unauthorised products have appeared in the local market in the past two years.' KPS said it was worried the bill would stop the practice of allowing parallel imports - for example by copyright owners on one hand and KPS on the other.