Home users face fines or jail for illegal download

[chuayw2000]

TOUGHER laws, including imposing a jail term, are to be introduced against home users who illegally download music, movies and computer programs from the Internet onto their computers.

What they do will be viewed as a criminal offence under the proposed amendment to the Copyright Act, and those found guilty can be fined up to $20,000 and/or jailed up to six months.

Currently, owners of the copyrighted materials have to sue such users in a civil suit and often, the fine imposed is not worth the cost of tracking and taking legal action against them.

The new punishments will be introduced in Parliament today and are expected to come into effect by year-end.

The change was inevitable as it was required under the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, said Mr Lau Kok Keng, head of intellectual property, technology, entertainment and communications practice at law firm Rajah and Tann.

'With Internet piracy rates going up and the ease with which such distribution can be done by individuals over the Internet, there must be a deterrent to discourage such illegal activities,' he added.

The latest Global Piracy Study by the Business Software Alliance, which tracks software piracy, shows fewer pirated copies of software like Windows XP and Microsoft Office, among others, being used here.

It has slipped to 43 per cent from 48 per cent last year. However, the real situation may be worse. 'It is difficult to uncover such illegal activities,' said Mr Lau.

The situation has been made worse by such file-sharing software as Kazaa and BitTorrent, which make downloading and distribution of movies, music and software much easier and faster.

Mr Lau is confident the change 'will close the loopholes and hopefully curb the demand for pirated content.' However, he concedes its effectiveness, not unlike Singapore's pornography laws, will have to rely substantially on tip-offs and good forensic work.

The tough Act to come does not seem to worry Mr B. Tan, a 28-year-old sales manager who downloads movies and music almost daily.

'I may cut down a bit but I don't think I would get caught. Everybody's doing it. They can't catch us all,' he said.

Although the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, or Ipos, had sought public feedback on the proposed changes earlier this year, the responses were not made public. Yesterday, Ipos and copyright owners such as the Record Industry Association (Singapore), the Motion Picture Association, the BSA, and the Entertainment Software Association declined to comment on the proposed amendment.

One area that drew flak from intellectual property lawyers yesterday was the term 'commercial scale'. A crime is committed only when the downloads are of a 'commercial scale' but the term is not defined.

Said Mr Cyril Chua of Alban Tay Mahtani & de Silva: 'The amendment is unsatisfactory as the term is vague and people would not know what constitutes commercial scale.'

Another intellectual property lawyer, who declined to be named, went further. He said: 'If the Government wants to make end-user piracy a criminal offence, it should say where this line is drawn rather than cop out with some vague 'commercial scale' definition.'

Mr Lau said that without clear out-of-bounds markers, 'you'll probably need to wait for the first pirate to be charged in court to see where the boundaries are.'

Source: http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/sub/topst...emme_callback=1

[SAMSNEED]

:pirate: Only in Singapore...... whew

[colordeficiency]

And I'm there. Aww. We were safe for so long, and now a FTA comes and ruin it all.

[karma_police]

haha not here

[DigitalN.]

meh, Id still do it if I lived there. a good firewall and a program that changes your IP however long of intervals never hurt

[evo0o]

Sigh, guess it's back to buying CDs huh?

[futb0l]

Doubt anyone will get caught if they only use them personally and do not distribute copies.