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Piracy

Malaysia Passes Bill to Imprison Illegal Streaming Pirates For Up To 20 Years (torrentfreak.com) 62

New amendments to Malaysia's Copyright Act mean that "People who offer streaming services and devices that 'prejudicially' hurt copyright owners can face fines equivalent to $2,377 or more, prison sentences up to 20 years, or both," reports Engadget.

TorrentFreak has more details: How the amendments will be used in practice remains to be seen but the scope appears to be intentionally broad and could result in significant punishments for those found to be in breach of the law....

Those hoping to use a corporate structure as a shield are also put on notice. When any offenses are committed by a corporate body or by a person who is a partner in a firm, everyone from directors to managers will be deemed guilty of the offense and may be charged severally or jointly, unless they can show they had no knowledge and conducted due diligence to prevent the offense.

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Malaysia Passes Bill to Imprison Illegal Streaming Pirates For Up To 20 Years

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  • by quenda ( 644621 ) on Monday December 20, 2021 @12:49AM (#62098733)

    used to be a terrible problem, but with the help of the Indian navy, it has almost been eradicated.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • mpeg-2 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Monday December 20, 2021 @12:54AM (#62098739)

    Malaysia, the one country where old mpeg patents are STILL valid and will be until the year 2035. It became a convenient excuse for the raspberry pi to disable default hardware decode of MPEG-2. Reference: https://forums.raspberrypi.com... [raspberrypi.com]

    • by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      It became a convenient excuse for the raspberry pi to disable default hardware decode of MPEG-2.

      Well if you were so convinced that they did it as a "convenience excuse" instead of due to the potential liability, take them up on their offer and pay the 20 million. If they still leave it disabled then you know they were lying.

      • So why not just not sell them in Malaysia? If they're going to have such stupid laws, fuck 'em

        • Yeah fuck the hackers and citizens of another country. They don't deserve to play with a fantastic open computing platform. It's far more important that some entitled westerner who doesn't want to spend a couple of dollars on a license key for hardware decoding support for something that could be done in software gets what they want instead /mocking sarcasm.

          Drinkypoo, sometimes what you say makes sense, other times it makes you sound like an overentitled twat. You are literally saying an entire country shou

          • Yeah fuck the hackers and citizens of another country. They don't deserve to play with a fantastic open computing platform.

            If they can't keep their government in line then correct.

            Note that yes, this goes double for uhhmericans like myself.

            There's no reason the rest of the world should suffer because one nation's inhabitants have their heads up their asses.

            And yeah, that goes triple for the USA.

            • by jrumney ( 197329 )
              The Malaysian government has no part to play in the licensing games played by the MPEG2 rights holders to extend the lifespan of their patents by exploitng loopholes in different countries' laws (the US was one of the major ones played in this game).
          • by jrumney ( 197329 )
            It's 35 cents for the MPEG2 patent now. It's not even entitled Westerners complaining about a couple of dollars.
        • by EvilSS ( 557649 )

          So why not just not sell them in Malaysia? If they're going to have such stupid laws, fuck 'em

          They explain it in the link from the comment I replied to: They have no way to prevent importation from outside the country. If they get into the country then it opens them up to a lawsuit even though they didn't send them to Malaysia directly.

          • How is that even possible? If this were in any way close to valid international law there would be no end of lawsuits over this kind of nonsense. At best a country might be able to make it illegal for a company incorporated in their borders to export to other nations, but I don't think what you're suggesting is possible.

            If they did no business in Malaysia what could the government actually do to them when they have no offices, employees, or assets in the country that the government can seize or threaten.
            • by EvilSS ( 557649 )

              There are still live patents on MPEG2 in the Philipines and Malaysia. Unless you can absolutely guarantee that no devices will ever be sold in those countries then there has to be some form of licence agreement in place. Get it wrong and their position would be to charge for every single Pi ever sold. They don't deal in grey areas of "but only 0.01% of devices are likely to be sold in those countries". Do you fancy handing over 20 million * around £2.40 per device? We'll gladly accept your cheque if you fancy paying it personally.

              The MPEG2 license terms from MPEG LA state that you owe royalties where the patent is still in force. If a device is found being sold by pretty much anyone in Malaysia, MPEG LA can file suite in Malaysia for violation of their license. If you are not a licensee, they can come at you in Malaysia for patent infringement.

              https://www.mpegla.com/programs/mpeg-2/license-agreement/

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It's a shame because if the Pi 0/1 had hardware MPEG2 decoding they could be quite useful for CCTV type applications.

        The RPi people dismiss the need for it on a Pi 2 or 3, but even there some acceleration would free up resources for other stuff, and reduce power consumption.

        • by EvilSS ( 557649 )
          I agree, but I can't fault them for not wanting to end up in a legal fight with a litigious patent holder. This issue for me is that this is even a possible thing. Companies shouldn't be able to use a situation like this to extend their patent rights past the patent window in other countries.
        • Couldn't someone just make an add-on chip to plug-in and handle this for anyone who really needs it?
          • A HAT for the Raspberry Pi Zero might work, but not sure if the MPIO bus would be fast enough to handle the dedicated encoding/decoding.

    • Weird, a patent is protected 20 years from the date of filing for Malaysia.

      so the last patent if they filed it in Malaysia would be 2027 where did you get 2035 from?

        • ummm they look like it has Priority UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (US) 1

          get a lawyer incentivized to invalidated/worked around and these will be nulled, it looks like a house of cards someone is protecting...

      • by jrumney ( 197329 )
        Their law changed around 2000 IIRC in the same way that US law changed in 1995. MPEG2 is one of the last patents that started under the old law and managed to drag out their filing period so the patents haven't expired yet.
    • Please don't use the word "convenient excuse" as if the Pi foundation somehow owes you a licensing fee you are unwilling to pay for. Negotiated terms are just that, you can take it or leave it.

      It's not like you can't play MPEG2 content. Only the original Raspberry Pi's CPU wasn't powerful enough for that.

  • Many young adults don't have options & this can destroy lives
    • They have the option not to listen/watch content that they cannot afford. I would prefer to live in a society where pirating music/video is not a life-ending sentence, but it is an option. Many generations grew up without having access to content on demand. So while I disagree with the law, I don't think it is correct to say they don't have options. As for destroying lives, I believe that's the whole point of the law: sufficient deterrent to make it unthinkable to pirate content.

      • When I was young we had to go to a physical store to get the latest Benny Goodman 78. We all made sure we had the latest fad vegetable on our belts, though.
      • Copyright infringement is not piracy.

        • That is the legal definition. What would you define digital piracy as?

          • by MrNaz ( 730548 ) on Monday December 20, 2021 @08:20AM (#62099237) Homepage

            Copyright infringement should not be called piracy. It was initially called piracy way back when the content mafia wanted to find the most hyperbolic term they could find, enabling them to throw the book at anyone who dared copy their content.

            We don't call robbing a liquor store "piracy", even though the presence of violence and the removal of a physical object makes it far more alike to real piracy. Copying a non-physical object may be a criminal offence, but the entire language used around "piracy" is deliberately designed to make it sound far worse than it is.

            Copying the latest ear trash from Sony Music is not piracy, it's not even analogous. There is no physical harm that comes to anyone, and the data repeatedly shows that it doesn't even appear to have a meaningful impact on their bottom line.

            • Should not be is not the same as is not. This is the term of art, it is correct to use it in this context. It means exactly the action we're all talking about, and in this context is no different than larceny or robbery.

            • I kind of like piracy because even though it doesn't fit the traditional or legal definition, it does sound a lot more badass. I think this is why it's been embraced (e.g. Pirate Bay / Party) to a certain extent and in doing so makes the music and film industry associations look ridiculous.
      • The sentence is for people who profit off the crime, not the individual users.
  • dmca (Score:2, Interesting)

    by rxhxZa ( 8475165 )
    Malaysia,is what next to Russia on the freedom index?
  • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday December 20, 2021 @02:31AM (#62098837) Journal

    ...crime than murder and rape is because big media co's bribe such laws into place.

    • by Guignol ( 159087 )
      This is why the distinction is clearly made in the topic:
      "Malaysia Passes Bill to Imprison Illegal Streaming Pirates For Up To 20 Years"
      Legal pirates have nothing to worry about, in fact, now even less than before
  • Convenient Excuse (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nateman1352 ( 971364 ) on Monday December 20, 2021 @02:56AM (#62098865)
    Given Malaysia's history of corruption, a broad and vague law like this will in no way be used arbitrarily detain political adversaries. Oh you donated to the opposition leader's campaign and happen to be a manager at a company where one employee watched an illegal stream once while on the job. Obviously management incompetence is the problem here. The fact that employee wasn't in your reporting structure does not matter. That employee gets a $100 fine. You on the other hand get 20 years in jail. The rest of the company's management is fine too, we found the true person responsible for this!
    • Given Malaysia's history of corruption, a broad and vague law like this will in no way be used arbitrarily detain political adversaries.

      Haha. That is such an idealistic view of how Malaysia works. No Malaysian cares about the 'crime' of denying some millionaire film executive in the US a couple of bucks for their movie. You can still buy ripped DVDs of everything (well, except porn, that is frowned upon) in the open in most of the tech shopping centres. The police don't care and nor do the citizens. More than likely this law was passed in exchange for some 'investment funds' for one of the ruling party's pet projects, or just to grease up t

    • ... arbitrarily detain political adversaries ...

      Imprisonment is meant to prevent further crime, punish the offender, or serve as an example. Despite the USA mindset, prison rarely serves as an example. Either way, the government has to pay for that prison and should be asking "what's the cost of doing nothing?" In this case, the cost of not enabling corporate greed, is zero to society. Increasing the cost of protection for no benefit means the point of this law isn't protecting corporations.

      Many laws are the result of "I'm really concerned and doin

  • by franzrogar ( 3986783 ) on Monday December 20, 2021 @03:20AM (#62098883)

    What is Culture? It's a piece of human creation SHARED between a group of humans.

    If you don't have money or the prices are so expensive (who regulates that the Culture prices are not scam?) that it's impossible to buy it without sacrificing a basic need (food, electricity, etc.) should you be PUNISHED for trying to access Culture? I'd like to hear your answer.

    • For sake of argument-

      The culture that is for sale is not the true culture.

      The balance to this is not to appropriate false culture, because that still leaves you subservient to false gods, and weirdly gives them MORE control over you (this applies equally to OSs)..

      The balance is to cultivate culture to such overwhelming degree, it is impossible to price, and blots out these false gods.

      And hold them to account when they appropriate YOUR culture (I say wedgies all around).

    • In most countries, there are free or nearly free options to access culture (such as the library), and most works become cheaper over time, prices drop and 2nd hand copies hit the market. People on a tight budget have fewer options, but I wouldn't say none at all.

      Though I agree with the sentiment: culture is something to be shared, it is abdundant in essense: once a work has been created it can be shared with anyone who wants it at virually no cost. Only we have placed an artificial temporary monopoly on
    • If we consider software as part of our "culture" then I'd like to hear YOUR answer to the same question.
      • Software IS part of Culture.

        As a counter-question before answering yours... Is MATH/LOGIC part of Culture (without pitiful quotation marks)?

        • I think culture can be defined broadly enough to include just about anything including math or logic.
  • I guess that if you're a Malaysian looking for something to do, it's better to go out and rape someone than to pirate a film.

  • Iâ(TM)m sure Malaysian artists are happy to hear their work is protected. No need to protect international content as all that does is shift local funds out of the community and laws should serve the people of a country and not external merchants.
  • When any offenses are committed by a corporate body or by a person who is a partner in a firm, everyone from directors to managers will be deemed guilty of the offense and may be charged severally or jointly, unless they can show they had no knowledge and conducted due diligence to prevent the offense. ...

    They would best use a US-based entity subject to US laws regarding its management and operation then, since laws like the Malaysian one would never pass muster due to the inherent violation of due process

  • by AcidFnTonic ( 791034 ) on Monday December 20, 2021 @12:47PM (#62099923) Homepage

    Devices that "hurt" copyright owners? See this new shift in owording. This means no loopholes of finding something legal they don't like. This wording directly says basically it's illegal to do anything they don't like.

    Wow.

  • Don't you wish that government officials and bank executives could be held to these sort of standards.

MS-DOS must die!

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