Video Recordings of Parliamentary Proceedings

22 Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for Communications and Information (a) which entity owns the copyright to the video recordings of parliamentary proceedings; and (b) if these video records are protected by copyright, whether the Ministry will consider removing such copyright and making all video footage of parliamentary proceedings freely available for use.

The Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information (Mr Chee Hong Tat) (for the Minister for Communications and Information): Mr Speaker, Sir, Mediacorp, as Singapore's national broadcaster, is commissioned by the Government to cover Parliamentary sittings on various platforms, including free-to-air TV, Channel NewsAsia (CNA)'s Parliament microsite and CNA's Facebook page.

The public can use the recordings for personal and non-commercial purposes with proper attribution to Mediacorp. This practice is consistent with well-accepted online etiquette, and the arrangement has worked well so far. Mediacorp's recordings have been regularly used by social media sites as well as political parties, including the Workers' Party.

Mr Leon Perera (Non-Constituency Member): I thank the Senior Minister of State for his reply. Just a few supplementary questions. Firstly, why is Parliament not given the modest funding and ability to make its own live feed and video recordings available and provide a searchable archive? This is common in other developed countries and legislatures like Australia, Taiwan, Japan, UK, US and France, for example, many of whom have their YouTube channel or some other ways of archiving video recordings of sittings. That is the first one.

The second one is: why does a corporate entity own the copyright to record a Parliamentary proceedings − an activity where other costs associated with creating the proceedings, such as the cost of the Parliament team, for example, are paid for by the taxpayers? Why should a corporate entity be given so much power to choose what to put up, when to put it up, when to take it down, how to edit it before presentation? And I do know from direct experience that, at times, these clips are edited and they are not archived and made available verbatim.

Thirdly, if the consideration behind this is cost, is it possible to rethink the allocation of cost by collecting fees on a pay-per-use basis from a variety of media outlets?

Mr Chee Hong Tat: Mr Speaker, I think Mr Perera may have forgotten the discussion that we had during the Committee of Supply. Mr Pritam Singh asked about these issues and I have explained at that time to Mr Pritam Singh and others that the reason why we do not have a live feed is because this is not in great demand.

At the moment, the Parliament footages are shown on television under Parliament Highlights and within a few hours will be put on the CNA microsite. The arrangement has worked well so far. It has provided the footages online; used to be one month and it has been extended to six months.

Just to recap what we discussed at the Committee of Supply. The people who watched a major Parliamentary speech like the Budget speech, the number of people who watched it live was only about 10%, compared to what was shown on free-to-air television on the news that evening. Less than 1% of the viewers watched the Budget live using web streaming.

Mr Perera has also mentioned that the copyright belongs to Mediacorp. That is not true. What I said in my reply earlier was that the copyright belongs to the Government and the Government then commissioned Mediacorp, as Singapore's national broadcaster, to cover the Parliament sittings and to show the footages on various platforms, including free-to-air television, Channel NewsAsia's Parliament microsite and Channel NewsAsia's Facebook page.

Mr Perera also mentioned that the footages have been – I think he used the word "edited" – and he mentioned that not everything is shown. I wish to clarify that is not true. I have also explained this during the Committee of Supply that the footages are all put up. They are edited to show, to arrange and to sort them out based on the speakers and the reply given. If Mr Perera feels that there are certain examples that have been left out, maybe the Member can give me some specific examples and we will certainly look into those.

Mr Leon Perera: I thank the Senior Minister of State for his reply. There was a specific example where a clip was put up in relation to the Presidential Election Act debates. If my memory serves me well, it was in January or February and the clip that was put up of certain exchanges, there were certain bits removed. It was actually communicated with Mediacorp and, through the correspondence, they actually made the rectification and put up a different clip. So, I think that was resolved quite amicably.

My point is that, in general, is it the case that all the clips that are put up are completely free of editing? I think the Senior Minister of State himself conceded that there is a certain degree of editing. So, those decisions are decisions which involve a high level of discretion. Should they be decisions handled by a private entity or should they be handled by a Government body subject to scrutiny, subject to questioning?

Mr Chee Hong Tat: Mr Speaker, I want to reiterate the point that what I said by "editing", I think my definition of editing may be different from what Mr Perera was alluding to. When I said "editing", what I meant was Channel NewsAsia would take the footages and they would sort them out based on the person who asked the question, the person who answered, so as to make it more convenient for viewers to search and to access these footages. The editing that is done is not to remove certain parts of what was said. It is shown as per what was said in Parliament and what is reflected in Hansard, on the microsite and on the video footages of Facebook page and so on and so forth.

It is important, Mr Speaker, that when we discuss such issues, we have to recognise, is there a problem that we need to solve? And if no problem exists, I think one should not go around looking for imaginary problems to tackle. That is like having a hammer and then wanting to knock everything around you as though they are nails. [Please refer to "Clarification by Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information", Official Report, 7 November 2017, Vol 94, Issue No 54.]