ELECTRONIC TRANSACTIONS (AMENDMENT) BILL

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ELECTRONIC TRANSACTIONS (AMENDMENT) BILL: Order for Second Reading read.

The Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts (Dr Balaji Sadasivan): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time".

Sir, this Bill seeks to amend the Electronics Transactions Act (ETA) to ensure that the liabilities of Network Service Providers pertaining to copyright are limited by provisions in the Copyright Act.

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The Copyright Act is being amended to ensure that Singapore 's copyright laws remain relevant in the digital age and strengthen Singapore 's position as an attractive location for copyright-based activities.

The proposed amendments to the Copyright Act provide that Network Service Providers will not be liable for infringement of copyright for the making available or storage of material provided they fulfill certain conditions, such as taking reasonable steps to remove such material upon receipt of formal notice.

The current ETA exempts a Network Service Provider from civil or criminal liability in respect of third-party material in the form of electronic records for which he merely provides access, if such liability is founded on infringement of any rights subsisting in or in relation to such material.

As such, the ETA provides a wider defence to a Network Service Provider than the Copyright Act for liabilities pertaining to copyright.

Section 10 of the ETA is being amended to address this inconsistency so that the defence available to a Network Service Provider under the ETA does not apply to any liability of the Network Service Provider under the Copyright Act in respect of €”

( a ) the infringement of copyright in any work or other subject-matter in which copyright subsists; or

( b ) the unauthorised use of any performance, the protection period of which has not expired.

Consequently, the only defences that will be available to a Network Service Provider in respect of any such liability

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will be the defences in the Copyright Act which wasintroduced under the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2004. This will obviate any inconsistency in Singapore 's laws.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [DrBalaji Sadasivan].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.