Hong Kong Targets Duplicate Images Online — But the City Is Still Playing Catch-Up With Singapore and London

Hong Kong's Intellectual Property Department logged a measurable uptick in complaints related to duplicate and recycled digital imagery during the first half of 2026, reflecting a problem that has quietly metastasised across every major commercial hub connected to global content pipelines. The city's existing copyright framework, anchored by the Copyright Ordinance (Cap. 528), was last substantially amended in 2022 — but legal specialists and platform operators say the rules were written for a different internet.

The timing matters. Generative AI tools capable of producing near-identical copies of licensed photographs, product shots, and editorial visuals have become cheap enough that small e-commerce operators in Sham Shui Po's wholesale electronics blocks and Mong Kok's garment arcades now routinely republish images scraped from competitor listings without modification. That practice, once labour-intensive, now takes seconds. The result is a surge in duplicate content that clogs platforms, dilutes brand value, and creates genuine legal exposure for sellers who may not understand where the line sits.

What Hong Kong Is Actually Doing About It

The Intellectual Property Department operates a dedicated Online Copyright Infringement Reporting System, accessible through its Queensway office and via its public portal. Rights holders can file takedown requests that, under a notice-and-takedown framework, compel platforms to act. The mechanism broadly mirrors the safe-harbour architecture used in the European Union under the 2019 Digital Single Market Directive and in the United Kingdom under the Digital Economy Act 2017. The practical difference is speed. London-based rights holders filing through the UK's Intellectual Property Office can access mediation services with legally binding timelines; Hong Kong's system relies more heavily on voluntary platform cooperation, which varies considerably depending on whether the hosting server sits onshore or across the border.

The Hong Kong Arts Development Council and the Hong Kong Design Centre, both of which represent communities of photographers, illustrators, and visual designers concentrated in areas like Kwun Tong's creative industries cluster and Sheung Wan's commercial studios, have separately raised the issue of image duplication with government liaison bodies. Neither organisation has published a formal policy demand as of July 2026, but the Design Centre's annual survey of creative-sector concerns, released in March 2026, listed IP enforcement as among the top three operational challenges facing independent practitioners — placing it ahead of rental costs for the first time in the survey's history.

Singapore and London Are Ahead, For Now

The comparison with Singapore is uncomfortable for Hong Kong's trade promotion infrastructure. The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore introduced an AI-specific image-rights advisory in late 2024 and embedded duplicate-detection obligations into its updated platform liability guidelines by January 2025. That means a Singaporean marketplace operator hosting listings with duplicated product photography faces explicit statutory guidance; a Hong Kong operator in an equivalent position is navigating a framework that predates the mass deployment of image-synthesis tools.

London's position is different again. The UK's approach under its ongoing AI and Copyright consultation — open through much of 2025 and feeding into draft legislation expected before Parliament later this year — is more contested but also more transparent. Rights holders there know what is being debated and by whom. In Hong Kong, the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau has yet to publish a dedicated consultation paper on AI-generated or algorithmically duplicated imagery, though officials have indicated in broad terms that a review of the Copyright Ordinance remains on the medium-term legislative agenda.

For businesses operating out of offices in Central or running product listings on platforms like HKTVmall, the practical advice from IP lawyers with practices in the city is consistent: register original images with timestamped records, issue formal takedown notices rather than relying on informal reports, and document every instance of duplication in case civil proceedings become necessary. The courts at the High Court on Queensway remain the ultimate backstop — but litigation is slow and expensive. Until the city's regulatory architecture catches up with Singapore's more proactive model, the burden of enforcement falls disproportionately on the rights holders themselves.