SINGAPORE, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Law and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore said Thursday that the Copyright Act in Singapore will be amended based on a copyright review report released the same day.
The amended Copyright Act will focus on three issues, namely enhancing creator's rights, improving users' accessibility to copyrighted materials, and helping both creators and users in the licensing process of copyrighted works, according to a press statement.
This was based on the Singapore Copyright Review Report, which overlooks changes proposed after a three-year review and two rounds of public consultation held from 2016 to 2017.
One of the changes will be the "New right of attribution," which will allow creators the right to be attributed to their works, regardless of whether they still own or have sold that copyright.
According to the report, this will allow the content creators the platform to build their reputation and be given due recognition. Before this amendment, users are not required by law to attribute works to the creators.
The report also proposes changes for users, by allowing "enhanced exception for use for educational purposes." This means that non-profit schools and their students will now be able to access these resources without payment, for instruction purposes. The same materials will also be accessible by other schools and students through student learning portals.
Lastly, the report proposes a new class licensing scheme for collective management organizations - which to this day remains unregulated. The proposed scheme will help oversee the collective management organizations and ensure appropriate levels of transparency, governance and accountability, allowing facilitation of licensing transactions more efficiently.
