Copyright Challenges in the 21st Century

On 5 December 2016, the Centre for Law & Business (CLB) at NUS Law and Applied Research Centre for Intellectual Assets and the Law in Asia (ARCIALA) at SMU Law co-organised a seminar that hosted about 100 participants from the legal profession, government service and academia.

The seminar assembled a unique constellation of national and international intellectual property experts who shared their insights on the challenges that the transnational copyright lawyer will face in the 21st century, and explored issues that are relevant to practitioners, scholars and policymakers.

Professor Jane Ginsburg, the Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law at Columbia University School of Law, and Faculty Director of its Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts, covered the quandaries of the making available right in the United States and Europe. Associate Professor Elizabeth Ng Siew Kuan, Deputy Chair of CLB, navigated the tricky terrain of technological protection measures and geo-blocking. Professor Liu Kung-Chung, External Director of ARCIALA, was concerned with appropriate remuneration for the use of digital works and highlighted the balancing conundrums in enabling every online user to have unhindered access to copyrighted works while making his/her contribution to the payment of right holders and eventually to the sustainability of the copyright ecology. Associate Professor David Tan, Vice Dean (Academic Affairs) at NUS Law, tackled the nebulous doctrine of fair use/fair dealing and its future in the new proposed Singapore’s copyright regime. Mr Simon Seow, Director of Intellectual Property Policy Division at the Ministry of Law, moderated the discussion session.