Pakistan: Draft Amendment Bill To Be Introduced In National Assembaly

A BILL to amend the Copyright Ordinance, 1962.

WHEREAS it is expedient to amend the Copyright Ordinance, 1962 (XXXIV of 1962), for the purposes hereinafter appearing;

It is hereby enacted as follows:-

"(p) "literary work" includes work on humanity, religion, social and physical sciences, tables, compilations of data or other material in any form and computer programmes, that is to say, programmes recorded on any disc, tape, perforated media or other information storage device, which, if fed into or located in a computer or computer based equipment is capable of reproducing any information;"

"(zcc) "rental" is the authorization to use the original or a copy of a computer program and a cinematographic work for a limited period of time for consideration;"

"(ix) to authorise the rental of computer programmes;"

"(v) to authorize the rental of cinematographic works;"

"(3) Protection to compilation of data or other material shall not extend to data or other material itself and shall be without prejudice to any copyright subsisting in the data or other material, that is to say, the protection shall be extended to the extent of compilation only."

(1) Broadcasting organizations shall enjoy the right to authorize:-

(a) the rebroadcasting of their broadcasts;

(b) the fixation of their broadcasts; and

(c) the copying of fixations made of their broadcasts.

(2) This right shall subsist until twenty-five years from the begining of the calendar year next following the year in which the broadcast took place.

(1) The performers shall have the right to do or to prevent fixation of their un-fixed performance and reproduction of such fixation and broadcasting by wireless means and communication to the public of their live performance.

(2) The producers of phonograms shall have the right to do or to prohibit the direct or the indirect reproduction of their fixation and any rental thereof.

(3) The rights specified in sub-sections (1) and (2) shall subsist for a period of fifty years computed from the end of the clander year in which fixation was made or performance took place."

Any person who, without authorization of the broadcasting organization, performers or producers of phonograms (sound recording) does or causes the doing of any of the acts referred to in sections 24 and 24A shall be deemed to infringe the rights of the broadcasting organization, performers and producers of phonograms (sound recording) and the provisions contained in Chapter XII to XVI shall, within the limits permitted by the nature of the matter, apply to broadcasting organization, performers and producers of phonograms (sound recording) as if they were authors and works, respectively.

(a) "broadcasting" means communication to the public of sound or image or both by means of radio diffusion, including communication by telecast, or wire, or by both, or by any other means of communication.

(b) "rebroadcasting" means the simultaneous broadcasting by one broadcasting organization of the broadcast of another broadcasting organization.

(c) "fixation" means the incorporation of sound or image or both in a device by means of which they can later be made aurally or visually perceivable.

(d) "phonogram" means any exclusively aural fixation of sounds of a performance or of other sounds.

(e) "producer of phonogram" means a person who, or the legal entity which first fixes the sounds of a performance or other sounds."

"(3) The Federal Government or the Board may, upon an application by any Governmental or statutory institution, in the public interest, grant a license to reprint, translate, update or publish any text book on non-profit basis."

Provided that in the case of artistic works the Registrar shall not enter the particulars of the work in the Register of Copyrights and shall not issue a certificate of Registration to the applicant unless within one month of the filing of the application, or within such extended time as the Registrar may determine, the applicant has advertised the work itself in a government newspaper as may be prescribed by Federal Government and sent tow copies thereof to the Registrar and unless within one month thereafter, or within such extended time as the Registrar may determine, not exceeding two months, the Registrar has not received any objection to the registration of particulars of the work in the Register of Copyrights.

"58. Importation and exportation of infringing copies:-

(1) The Registrar, on application of owner of copyright or his duly authorized agent and on payment of prescribed fee, may, after making such inquiry as he may deem fit, order that no infringing copies of the work shall be imported into or exported out of Pakistan.

(2) Subject to any rules that may be made under this Ordinance, the Registrar or any person authorized by him in this behalf may enter any ship, vehicle, dock or premises where any such copies as are referred to in sub-section (1) may be found and may examine such copies.

(3) All copies to which any order made under sub-section (1) applies, shall be deemed to be goods of which the bringing into or exporting out of Pakistan is prohibited or restricted under the provisions of the Customs Act, 1969 (IV of 1969), and all the provisions of that Act shall have effect accordingly."

"60A. Special remedies for infringement of copyright:-

(1) Where a copyright in any work has been infringed and the owner of the copyright is unable to institute immediate regular legal proceedings for sufficient cause, the owner or any other person having any interest in the copyright in the work, may apply to the court for immediate provisional orders to prevent infringement of the work and for preservation of any evidence relating to the infringement of the copyright in the work notwithstanding that regular proceedings in the form of a suit or other civil proceedings have not yet been instituted by the owner.

(2) The court may be pass any interim orders envisaged in sub-section (1) without prior notice to the defendant, if the court is satisfied that the applicant has some interest in copyright in the work and the right of the applicant is likely to be infringed, affected or prejudiced and any delay in passing such orders is likely to cause irreparable harm to the applicant or where there is a reasonable risk of evidence, either being destroyed, hidden or removed from the jurisdiction of the court or otherwise there is a likelihood of frustration of the intended proceedings if immediate action could not be instituted there is likelihood of multiplicity of proceedings in the absence of such orders.

(3) Where the copyright owner or any other person having any interest in the copyright has sought provisional orders as provided in sub-sections (1) and (2), such orders shall cease to have effect if a suit for infringement of copyright or other civil proceedings are not initiated within a reasonable time upto a maximum of one month, and where such regular proceedings have been filed by the owner of the copyright, the provisional proceedings in respect of such work by who so ever filed shall merge into the regular proceedings.

(4)While exercising jurisdiction under sub-section (1) and (2), the Court, in case of import or export of consignment containing infringing copies of works, may direct the customs authorities, in whose custody such consignment is lying for the time being to refuse release of such consignment pending decision of the matter by the court:

Provided that where interim orders are revoked or cease to have effect due to any act or omission of the applicant, the court may award appropriate costs to the defendant for any injury caused."

"(1) Every suit or other civil proceedings regarding infringement of copyright shall be instituted and tried in the court of District Judge which shall ordinarily be decided within a period of twelve months."

"65A. Prohibition.- No infringing copies of any work, whether themselves or depicted or applied to any article or goods or in any other form, shall be allowed to be imported into or exported from Pakistan either by sea, air, land or any other means or channel of communication.

65B. Jurisdiction of officers of customs.- (1) An officer of customs functioning under the Customs Act, 1968 (IV of 1969), upon an application by the owner of a copyright in the work or any other person having an interest in the copyright in the work may detain any consignment intended to be imported into or exported out of Pakistan which is suspected to contain infringing copies of any work.

(2) A consignment detained under sub-section (1) shall be examined by an officers of customs in the presence of the parties and upon determination that such consignment contains infringing copies of any work, the same shall be ordered to be confiscated and importer or exporter thereof, as the case may be, shall be liable to such penalties as provided in this behalf in the Customs Act, 1969 (IV of 1969) :

Provided that all the process of detention and examination of the consignment as provided in this section shall be completed ordinarily within a period of fifteen days of the filing of the application by the aforesaid person:

Provided further that an order passed by any officer of customs under this section shall be deemed to be an order passed under the customs Act, 1969 (IV of 1969), and shall be appealable as such.

65C. Release of detained consignment.- In case where the consignment intended to be imported into or exported from Pakistan has been detained by an officer of customs under section 65B and the requirements of first proviso to that section are not completed, the importer or exporter of such consignment, as the case may be, may apply to the customs authorities for release of such goods subject to furnishing such security as may be deemed appropriate by the officer of customs."

"(aa) the rental rights in cinematographic works and computer programmes;

(aaa) the rights of performers or producers of sound recording, or"

"66E. Penalty for unauthorised rental of cinematographic works and computer programmes.- Any person who, without authorisation of the copyright owner or his licensee rents out the original or copies of the cinematographic works or computer programmes, may be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to three years, or fine which may extend to rupees one hundred thousand or with both."

"70B. Enhanced fine in the case of subsequent offences.- Where any person convicted for an offence punishable under section 66, 66A, 66B, 66C, 66D, 66E, or 70A, is again convicted for the same offence, the said section shall have effect as if for the words "one hundred thousand" therein the words "two hundred thousand" were substituted."

"78A. Protection of confidential information in proceedings.- Upon an application by a party to any proceedings under this ordinance, any court, Registrar or the Board, as the case may be, in appropriate cases, may receive and use such confidential information which may be relevant for determination of the real controversy between the parties, subject to such conditions or restrictions which ensure confidentiality of such information, without making the same a part of the record.

Explanation.- The Court, Registrar or the Board, as the case may be, having received any confidential information may study or review and take notes thereof without retaining any copy or extract or making such confidential information a part of court record."

The Bill seeks to amend and substitute various provisions of the Copyright Ordinance, 1962. The main object and purpose of the Bill is to meet the obligation and comply with the requirements of the latest international agreement on copyright, namely the agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) entered into under the auspices of Word Trade Organization (WTO) in the year 1994 and Pakistan having ratified it being one of the member/signatory. The Bill further seeks to bring into effect the amendments in the light of said Agreement with effect from 1st day of January, 2000 necessarily as the transitory period available to Pakistan like other developing countries expires on 31st day of December, 1999.

The content of this article is intended to provide general information on the subject matter. It is therefore not a substitute for specialist advice.