of blogging & law—

i was so lucky enough to get the chance to attend the "blogging & law" conference held this morning by eLawyer at auditorium tun mohd suffian, university malaya's (official website here) faculty of law. i could say that its such an interesting one that no bloggers should missed this. i really gained a lot of knowledge about blogging and its law here in our country.

and look who i met:

with julian hopkins* (who i first met during the nuffnang sharing session in october last year) and kruel74 (i eventually recognized him from his posts on nuffnang's innit; and me being the real kuE, just approached him without any doubts)

*julian is doing some surveys for all malaysian bloggers and everyone who reads malaysian blogs for a PhD in monash university sunway campus. it will only take you 10-15 minutes and, to thank you for your time, you get a chance to win a pair of platinum movie suite tickets (or similar service in a cinema near you). have your say now here or click on the above banner. take note that this will remain open until 10 april 2009.

so back to the conference, for those who were not there, here's something that we bloggers and blog readers should know [i hope that i don't miss anything :) ] —

eLawyer:
• founder: mr eddie law
• established in 2007, first of a kind law portal in malaysia
• law firm can advertise jobs with them
• sell law books by lawyers/students
• first law blog forum
• law resources i.e. legal fees calculator, online law dictionaries etc.
• esolutions for law firm
• legal Q&A for public
• service for searching lawyers


topic 1:
blogging & intellectual property
by mr foong cheng leong, a lawyer and a blogger

• trade marks
• patents
• copyright
• industrial designs
• trade secret

1. main intellectual property is concerning blogs:
   
   • trade marks
     
   • copyright
     
   
   
   
2. trade marks:
   
   • rule of thumb:
     • don't sell counterfeit products
     • don't use trade marks as your domain name i.e. Scoobydoo.co.uk, Shell.de, Veronica.org
     
   
   
   
3. what is copyright?
   
   • exclusive right to make copies
     
   
   
   
4. law relating to copyright:
   
   • act 1987
     
   • applications to other countries regulations 1990
     
   • berne convention
     
   
   
   
5. what works eligible for copyright?
   
   • literary works
     
   • musical works
     
   • artistic works
     
   • films
     
   • sound recordings
     
   • broadcasts
     
   
   
   
6. who owns copyright?
   
   • author
     
   • employer
     
   • person who commissioned the work (sec. 26, 1997)
     
   
   
   
7. powers of copyright owner:
   
   • reproduction in any material form
     
   • communication to the public
     
   • performance to public
     
   • distribution— sale and other transfer of ownership
     
   • communication rental
     
   
   
   
8. durations of copyright: 50 years
   
   
9. blogging and copyright law
   — priciples of law are about the same with normal websites
   
   
10. copyright infringement
    examples of what amounts to copyright infringement:
    • posting pics, articles or videos belonging to someone else without consent
    • hosting BitTorrent files i.e. the pirate bay
    
    
11. hotlinking:
    
    • is the use of linked object, often an image, from one site to a web page belonging to a site-linking to other people's sites
      
    • is it infringing?
      
    
    
    
12. framing:
    
    • allows the viewer screen to split into multiple independently scrollable sections which may contain text, images or other frames
      
    • is it infringing?
      
    
    
    
13. defence:
    
    • no knowledge is not a defence
      
    • fair dealing (sec. 13(2) of copyright act 1987):
      *acts for purposes of:
      • non-profit research
      • private study
      • criticism
      • review; or
      • reporting of current events
      *what is fair dealing?
      
    
    
    
14. repercussions— civil action in court:
    
    • injunction
      
    • damages
      
    • legal cost
      
    
    
    
15. what do you do (infringing):
    
    • immediate removal
      
    • don't admit liability
      
    • negotiate for settlement/ignore the threat :)
      
    
    
    
16. conclusion:
    
    • to use or not to use
      
    • give due credit to author or owner
      

topic 2:
blogging & defamation law
by en nizam bashir, a malacca lawyer and a blogger

overview (1)
• malaysia— +/- 14.9m internet users in 2007

overview (2)
• fact
• apt to ask:

1. what can bloggers be liable for?
   
   • a number of things:
     — defamation
     — sedition
     — ISA
     — communication and multimedia act (CMA)
     
   
   
   
2. what defences can bloggers put forward?
   bloggers still have a number of rights:
   
   1. federal constitution
      
   2. defences to defamation law:
      — can't injure someone's reputations
      
   3. defences under sedition act:
      — 1948— prior to independence
      — what can be blogged and commented:
      • can point out mistakes made by ruler
      • errors or defects by government
      •
      
   4. defences against ISA
      
   5. defences under the CMA
      

so if you are interested to learn more about the above, take note that official recordings will be distributed at a special price of RM20 (normal price: RM25).

"there is freedom but there must also be responsibility"

links related to this blog post:
• click here for the report by NST
• a big wow to law conference 2009
• blogging and law
• eLawyer conference - be informed!
• blogging and law, a conference by eLawyer.com.my : a report
• report on eLawyer law conference 2009 - blogging & law
• elawyer law conference 2009 @ um

kuE' note:
all this while i made it a practice to just load my own pics here in my blog, unless otherwise stated i.e. movie posters. and after what i have learned today, i will ensure that these will be carried on insya Allah. it certainly won't be a problem for me if i blog without pics what...

to nuffnangers: make sure you all nang! me ya... :P thank you so much!