87. The representative of Hong Kong, China shared the experience of Hong Kong, China of a very simple and cheap system, although it did not directly address the question of protection of GIs. The Copyright Law in Hong Kong, China contained a provision which allowed the courts to give prima facie recognition to rights and works deposited in overseas copyright registries, for example, the Library of Congress Registry in the United States, which was a large sophisticated registry with a great number of rights registered for a fee of US$30. The court in Hong Kong, China, where such a registry was designated in its law, would accept a photocopy of a certificate of registration as prima facie evidence of two elements: the subsistence of copyright in a work and the ownership of the copyright. Such evidence was only prima facie evidence and was rebuttable; in any litigation, a defendant could demand to cross-examine a witness and question the facts as asserted in the registration certificate. He said that, in his experience, the US registration system had no substantive examination. Hong Kong, China's law further provided that, if a defendant in a copyright infringement called a witness from overseas and his cross-examination only resulted in proving the facts in the certificate, then the court was empowered to order the defendant to pay all costs involved in arranging the attendance of the witness in the court. So, there were provisions to prevent abuses of the right to cross-examine about prima facie evidence. This partial reversal of the burden of proof had been judged by experts to be consistent with the normal burden of proof principles of English common law. What were the costs involved here? Of course, the system used in Hong Kong, China was a "parasite" to the American registration system. For the cost of US$30 plus the cost of a photocopy, parties involved in court proceedings were saving themselves a very substantial sum of money in terms of bringing evidence to court, because they had the prima facie evidence provision to rely on. The representative of Hong Kong, China said that the benefits seemed to substantially outweigh the costs of this extremely simple system of copyright protection. He expressed the hope that there would be some will to work towards a system which would be extremely simple and yet maximize outcome while minimizing output.
