copyright For many years, British copyright law— the Imperial Copyright Act of 1911— applied in Singapore. Under this law, creative works received protection for the author’s life plus another 50 years.

Singapore enacted its own law, the Copyright Act, in 1987. This was modelled primarily on Australian rather than British legislation. It provided protection for original literary, musical, artistic and dramatic works (collectively grouped as ‘works’); sound recordings; cinematograph films; broadcasts; cable programmes; and publishers’ rights in published editions of works (collectively grouped as ‘subject matter other than works’).

According to this act, copyright protection is automatically conferred on the author of an original work as soon as it is created and fixed in a material form. There is no need to file for registration, or use the symbol ‘©’ to derive protection. Soon after the act came into force, Singapore entered into bilateral arrangements regarding copyright with the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Singapore also acceded to the convention establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization in 1990, the Agreement on Trade- Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights in 1995, and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1998.

In 2004, as part of Singapore’s obligations under the US– Singapore Free Trade Agreement, the Intellectual Property (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act was brought into force, and major amendments were made to the original Copyright Act. One change was that the duration of the copyright monopoly over all work was increased to the author’s life plus 70 years (an increase of 20 years on the original). Another change was that large- scale infringements, even those not involving any profit motive or distribution— such as the unauthorized uploading and downloading of copyright material on the Internet— became criminal offences. Those convicted of these offences could be fined up to $20,000 or imprisoned for up to six months, or both. Subsequent offences would make offenders liable to fines of up to $50,000, or jail terms of up to three years, or both.