October 2005

The biggest piracy syndicate in the country suffered serious losses when 45,000 pirated music CDs and master stampers that could replicate one million CDs were seized in a raid. The bad news: Not even one member of syndicate was arrested. Based on the quantity of goods seized yesterday, the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry…

Malaysia is the latest country to join the Creative Commons effort which enables creators to publish and share their works online. “Creative Commons makes it easier to share creations across boundaries, time and space by the use of creative commons licences,” said Dr Alina Ng, a senior executive with the Multimedia Development Corporation, which is…

Music pirates are less inclined to hawk their wares in the open, now that they can be arrested for the offence, said the Recording Industry Association of Malaysia (RIM). “We don’t see them in their usual haunts,” said RIM chief executive officer Tan Ngiap Foo. Suspected music pirates could only be issued with summonses until…

Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry enforcement officers have seized RM150,000 worth of equipment, computers and TV sets used for a paid digital karaoke service in Kuala Lumpur because of the use of pirated software. The ministry’s Intellectual Property Unit Director, Iskandar Halim Sulaiman, said the seizure was made under the “Ops Tulen Muzik II”…

LOCAL software developers attempting to commercialise their software products should be more aware of their intellectual property (IP) rights and take the necessary steps to protect them. Mindvault Sdn Bhd’s director David Oh told CompuTimes that although the country has sufficient IP laws to protect software developers, there is still lack of awareness among software…

We often hear that Malaysia needs to improve its enforcement of Intellectual Property (IP). Just recently, the US Ambassador to Malaysia made this call. So, what exactly does “better enforcement” entail? For one, it requires more effective courts and by that I mean Faster court procedures and Specialised IP judges. Legal proceedings in Malaysia are known…

THE Ministry of Higher Education hopes more companies would commercialise research and development (R&D) products developed by university researchers, said its director-general Datuk Prof Dr Hassan Said. “Previously, we used to be buyers of technologies. It is now timely for us to take the products out of the laboratory and into the market,” he said.…