I noted with interest the subsidiary legislation the Ministry of Law recently gazetted to implement the "take down" provisions of the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 1999, which comes into effect on Dec 15.
I wonder what the Ministry of Law means by steps a purported copyright owner has taken to "inform the person who made available the copy of the material on the network to remove the material..."
Does "inform" mean a request, an order or cowboy lawyers charging in with guns blazing and taking no prisoners ?
According to an article "Who is to blame for Web sex ?" (ST, Dec 5), "faced with a complaint that could lead to damages, a provider will tend to pull the offending site, even if the objection to it may be spurious."
This observation holds just as much for copyright complaints as for cyberporn complaints.
That is why the United States requires website owners to be given a chance to challenge allegations of copyright infringement and for the website to remain unless a court orders otherwise.
Singapore website owners will not get this protection under the new legislation. Of course, website owners can choose to host their websites on overseas service providers which provide stronger legal protection and are also less expensive.
Singapore-based service providers, however, have no alternative and are now at a competitive disadvantage in the global market for web services because they are unable to offer similar legal protections for the rights of their clients.
In its eagerness to please foreign software and multimedia giants, the Ministry of Law appears to have forgotten the rights and the interests of Singapore website owners and service providers.
The chairman of Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), the new regulator, has said that "everything will very largely be industry-led" (ST, Dec 1).
I hope the IDA will not forget that its first duty is to all the people of Singapore.
NGIAM SHIH TUNG
Originally published in the Straits Times, December 8, 1999.