[governance] Guest Memo (Jermy Malcolm): Copyright in Malaysia and the Fight For a Positive International IP Agenda

[James S. Tyre]

Argh.  My apologies to Jeremy for omitting a letter in the subject header.

--
James S. Tyre
Law Offices of James S. Tyre
10736 Jefferson Blvd., #512
Culver City, CA 90230-4969
310-839-4114/310-839-4602(fax)
jstyre at jstyre.com
Policy Fellow, Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://www.eff.org


> -----Original Message-----
> From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-
> request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of James S. Tyre
> Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 9:06 PM
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> Subject: [governance] Guest Memo (Jermy Malcolm): Copyright in Malaysia and the Fight
> For a Positive International IP Agenda
> 
> (This might interest some.)
> 
> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/guest-memo-copyright-malaysia-and-positive-ip-
> agenda
> 
> 
> JANUARY 19, 2013 | BY MAIRA SUTTON
> Guest Memo: Copyright in Malaysia and the Fight For a Positive International IP Agenda
> 
> We asked leading digital rights activists who have been involved in Trans-Pacific
> Partnership (TPP) negotiations to discuss copyright law and their advocacy work in the
> countries where they are based.
> 
> This week, Jeremy Malcolm of Consumers International explains recent changes to
> Malaysia's copyright law, and his current work in pushing for positive global
> standards that would protect the rights of users against abusive copyright policies.
> Jeremy is the Project Coordinator for Intellectual Property and Communications. He is
> based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
> 
> ~
> 
> Malaysia's copyright law changed last year with the Copyright (Amendment) Act 2012,
> and the changes were a mixed bag. On the positive side, the existing fair dealing
> exception to copyright-the more narrowly defined counterpart to "fair use" in US law-
> was broadened, and a specific exception for temporary electronic copies was added. But
> in exchange, infringers are now liable for much tougher penalties, including six-
> figure statutory damages. Tougher protections for digital locks are included too,
> including a crackdown on the sale of circumvention devices - though unlike in the US,
> you are free to break a digital lock that restricts you from exercising your fair
> dealing rights.
> 
> There were some copyright changes that Malaysia was pressured to adopt by the United
> States, but which didn't find their way into these latest amendments. It was proposed
> to make the possession of even a single copy of infringing content a criminal offence,
> and to make landlords of premises where it was sold liable too. Since most Malaysians
> possess at least one pirated DVD, this caused an uproar in the local newspapers, and
> the proposal was dropped. Though I don't condone piracy, their reaction is
> understandable when you consider just how expensive legitimate content is here.
> Malaysia's favourite breakfast dish is called nasi lemak, and you could buy 90 plates
> of it for the cost of one original Blu-ray disc.
> 
> One of the big problems is that copyright is a pretty invisible issue politically-
> except perhaps in the United States and Europe, in the wake of the successful protests
> over ACTA, SOPA and PIPA. Elsewhere in the world, people don't think about copyright,
> and newspapers don't report on it.  Therefore, there is little political risk for the
> government in, for example, extending the term of copyright protection by 20 years in
> exchange for increased market access. Even if the value lost to the local economy from
> the extension of copyright outweighs the value gained from new exports of local goods,
> the new exports are much more newsworthy and will gain the government more votes than
> it loses from the extension of copyright.
> 
> Although I am based in Malaysia, the work that I do for Consumers International is
> global.
> We see it as important to promote some global standards for access to knowledge that
> can offset the push from rights-holders for ever-increasing levels of copyright
> protection and enforcement.
> 
> Some of this we have already seen happening through the good work being done at the
> World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to introduce new minimum copyright
> exceptions for the blind and visually impaired, and for libraries. The problem is that
> historically WIPO has been an organisation for the promotion of intellectual property
> rights, and so having to balance these rights against other interests does not come
> naturally.  It is made all the harder by the fact that the majority of the NGOs who
> participate in WIPO are themselves rights-holder organisations, leaving the voice of
> consumers sidelined.
> 
> Therefore our approach has been to try a different venue, and we have settled on
> UNCTAD, the UN Conference on Trade and Development.  It too has a mandate over
> intellectual property issues, but from a development perspective, which makes it more
> favourable towards the promotion of access to knowledge.
> 
> We have developed some proposals for UNCTAD to update the UN Guidelines for Consumer
> Protection to protect consumers from abuse by rights-holders: for example, preventing
> the use of digital locks to cut out your fair use or fair dealing rights, stopping
> them from pushing updates to your digital devices that take away functionality, and
> requiring that if you're sold a digital product such as an e-book, it should come by
> default with all of the same rights that you'd have if you purchased a hard-copy.
> 
> We are now reviewing and drafting our proposed text for amendments to the UN
> Guidelines, and will have final proposals this March. Before the proposals finally
> come before governments in July this year, we will need your help to support these
> proactive amendments that assert the rights of users over the single-minded interests
> of the content industry.
> --
> James S. Tyre
> Law Offices of James S. Tyre
> 10736 Jefferson Blvd., #512
> Culver City, CA 90230-4969
> 310-839-4114/310-839-4602(fax)
> jstyre at jstyre.com
> Policy Fellow, Electronic Frontier Foundation https://www.eff.org
> 
> 
> 



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