Thursday, September 23, 2010

Licence fee demand by SPH

SPH has demanded a licence and investigation fee from a local website for posting its article in their website. It seems to be quite unreasonable. There is a new for a law to be passed to determine if such action by a media company is acceptable or undesirable. Read www.easyapps.sg/sgep/latest.aspx.
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1 comment:

Spur said...

Not sure if the context of this case is similar, but the Copyright Act does provide for Fair Dealing.

E.g. in Section 36 of the Copyright Act:-
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Fair dealing for purpose of criticism or review

36. A fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, or with an adaptation of a literary, dramatic or musical work, shall not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the work if it is for the purpose of criticism or review, whether of that work or of another work, and a sufficient acknowledgment of the work is made.
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The law also needs to weigh on the specific issues, such as:-
a) nature & purpose of the dealing, whether it's for profit or non-profit educational etc.

b) whether the dealing has affected the value or marketability of the article or original website etc.

All these are spelled out in the Copyright Act. But you need good lawyer to fight your case. Most of these laws are pro-business and serve to protect the interests of the owners of capital.

September 23, 2010 12:59 PM

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