Denial of copyright or rights in performances

(1) If it appears to the Minister that the laws of a country fail to give adequate protection to Belizean works or performances or fail to give adequate protection in the case of one or more classes of such works or performances, (whether the lack of protection relates to the nature of the work or performance or the nationality, citizenship or country of its author or performer or all of those matters) the Minister may, by Order published in the Gazette, make provision in relation to that country in accordance with subsection (2) of this (2) An Order made for the purposes of this section may provide either generally or in such classes of cases as are specified in the Order, that copyright or rights in performances 136 shall not subsist in works first published, or in performances first given after, a date specified in the Order (which may be a date before the commencement of this Act) if, at the time of the first publication of those works or the giving of the performance, the authors of the works or the performers were or are, (a) citizens or nationals of that country, not being at that time persons domiciled or resident in Belize; or (b) in the case of works that are sound recordings or films, specified in the Order, bodies incorporated under the laws of that country. (3) The Minister shall, in making an Order under this section, have regard to the nature and extent of the lack of protection for Belizean works or performances in consequence of which the Order is being made. (4) In this section, “Belizean work or performance” means a work of which the author was, at the time when it was made, a qualified person for the purposes of this Act or a performance by a performer who was at the time of the performance such a qualified person.