— 20 — UK legislation which would reflect the limited level of protection stipulated by the Directive, which was a measure aimed at harmonising copyright law in the European Community. Those concerns do not engage the Hong Kong courts. The learned authors appear to have advanced as an explanation of why the protection under the European regime was limited to the distribution of works incorporated in a tangible article, a policy of regulating only the distribution of works “through appropriate trade channels”. Whether or not that correctly explains the policy underlying the limitation adopted in the Directive, I would comment, merely in passing, that the increasingly significant volume of e-trade in electronic copies of works of all sorts would tend to suggest that the internet has become very much an established channel of trade. If and in so far as the textbook asserts – as Mr Pun seeks to suggest – that an electronic copy of a copyright work somehow a priori cannot be distributed via the internet, I am with respect unable to agree. F. Was there conduct constituting “distribution”? F.1 The argument in the magistrate’s court 53. Before the magistrate, the appellant17 sought to argue that the word “distribute” in the section should be construed as requiring active conduct on the distributor’s part throughout the process and that here, the copies were obtained by the actions of the downloaders at a stage when the appellant’s conduct was purely passive. The argument advanced in this Court, while closely related, was somewhat different, as further discussed below. 54. I would not accept the aforesaid argument both as a matter of construction of the word “distribution” and as a matter of fact. “Distribution” 17 Represented by Mr Paul Francis of Messrs Tang, Wong & Cheung, instructed by the Duty Lawyer Service.