John O'Donoghue
Question:31 Mr. O'Donoghue asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the plans, if any, he has to amend the Copyrights Acts. [12895/96]
Written Answers. - Copyright Legislation.
I draw the Deputy's attention to the reply given by the Minister of State with responsibility for Commerce, Science and Technology to Deputy Lynch on this subject on 17 April 1996, as reported in the Dáil Debates, volume 464 No. 1, columns 148-149.
In that reply the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte indicated that the Intellectual Property Unit of this Department was engaged in a comprehensive review of Irish copyright law, which was taking account of:
I. Our international obligations under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and the Rome Convention for the protection of Performers, Producers and Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations;
II. EU legislation on, inter alia, rental and lending, cable and satellite broadcasting, databases and duration of copyright together with proposals for EU legislation on resale rights and private tape levies.
III. Technological developments;
IV. The legitimate interests of both suppliers and users of copyright material; and
V. The need to ensure that copyright law does not impede legitimate creative activity.
The Department received a substantial number of comprehensive written submissions from interested parties on many of these subjects and afforded each party the opportunity to make an oral submission in support of its material. The IP Unit recently completed this phase of the review process and it commenced drafting heads of consolidating legislation in this extremely difficult and technical area.
The Deputy will be aware that copyright involves private property rights and that any piece of legislation that expands the rights of one group will lead to additional demands from, and upon others. Accordingly, there is a need to ensure that the Bill, when complete, will strike a balance between the interests of rights owners on the one hand and users on the other, whilst ensuring continued creativity in all spheres of economic life.
I intend to bring forward this legislation as soon as possible but the Deputy will appreciate that given the difficulties and technical issues involved, the importance of the legal rights provided for and the nature of our international obligations, we must proceed cautiously. The Deputy will wish to be aware in this context that quite an amount of work in this area at the international level will be completed at a Diplomatic Conference to be held in Geneva in the latter part of our presidency of the EU. The decisions taken at that conference will also impact on our new Copyright Bill and will have to be incorporated into that Bill. The Deputy can be assurred that there will be no delay in processing the legislation and that the Minister of State concerned will make every effort to expedite it.