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.
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.
Piracy in the Strait of Malacca (Score:4, Funny)
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]
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Do you have a specific reason for it to be particularly untrustworthy?
mpeg-2 (Score:3, Interesting)
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]
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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.
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So why not just not sell them in Malaysia? If they're going to have such stupid laws, fuck 'em
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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
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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.
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What their government does is entirely up to them.
Right. And what others do in reaction is entirely up to them. If you get near a point, by all means make it.
You have a low UID, stop acting like an over entitled childish brat.
UID is irrelevant. Patent trolling nations should be treated as such.
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Right. And what others do in reaction is entirely up to them. If you get near a point, by all means make it.
Indeed it is entirely up to them. Ironically you think it shouldn't be. My point was two private companies came to an agreement "entirely up to them" and you little entitled crybaby are having a temper tantrum over the agreement costing you a few pounds and think instead they agreement "entirely up to them" which supports the continued market of 35million people should be changed.
Because of you.
Pathetic.
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Indeed it is entirely up to them. Ironically you think it shouldn't be.
You are being fucking stupid. They have a right to do whatever they want in their nation. And the right thing to do is to not impede others' experiences because of it.
Pathetic.
...is what I call your ability to reason. Which is nonexistent, when you suggest I'm trying to tell other people what to do in their nations. Get a fucking brain.
Re:mpeg-2 (Score:4, Insightful)
In this case I have to agree with drinkypoo. What it costs Pi customers is irrelevant. Don't coddle individual countries for their insane IP laws.
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In this case I have to agree with drinkypoo. What it costs Pi customers is irrelevant. Don't coddle individual countries for their insane IP laws.
No one is coddling anyone. Just advocating not punishing 35million people for the actions of a private agreement between two companies. Hint: A patent expiring doesn't obligate anyone to open up anything.
If we start judging people by the actions of their government then you Americans are fucking monsters who should burn in hell. No. Freeze in hell. If you burn you'll destroy even more of the world than you already have.
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They are coddling the government of Malaysia. In this case, 35 million people deserve to be punished if they are in fact responsible for these idiots taking office and behaving in such a manner.
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What their government does is entirely up to them.
There are a lot of authoritarian shithole countries in the world that western companies should not be doing business with, but money always seems to come before principle.
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There are a lot of authoritarian shithole countries
There's less authoritarian shithole countries than there are ignorant Slashdotters thinking that Malaysia is an authoritarian shithole instead if a well functioning representative democracy. Get a clue moron.
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There's less authoritarian shithole countries than there are ignorant Slashdotters thinking that Malaysia is an authoritarian shithole instead if a well functioning representative democracy. Get a clue moron.
Human Rights Watch disagrees.
https://www.hrw.org/world-repo... [hrw.org]
Malaysia is rated Partly Free in Freedom in the World, Freedom House's annual study of political rights and civil liberties worldwide.
https://freedomhouse.org/count... [freedomhouse.org]
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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.
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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.
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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/
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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.
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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.
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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?
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https://bryanquigley.com/posts... [bryanquigley.com]
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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...
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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.
This is dangerous (Score:2, Troll)
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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.
Re: This is dangerous (Score:2)
Re: This is dangerous (Score:2)
Copyright infringement is not piracy.
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That is the legal definition. What would you define digital piracy as?
Re: This is dangerous (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
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Re: This is dangerous (Score:1)
dmca (Score:2, Interesting)
The only reason pirating is a "bigger" (Score:4, Insightful)
...crime than murder and rape is because big media co's bribe such laws into place.
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"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)
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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
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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
Let talk clear for once... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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).
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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
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Software IS part of Culture.
As a counter-question before answering yours... Is MATH/LOGIC part of Culture (without pitiful quotation marks)?
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How to entertain yourself in Malaysia (Score:1)
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.
Re: How to entertain yourself in Malaysia (Score:1)
Malaysian Artists (Score:1)
Use a US corporation (Score:2)
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
Devices that "hurt" copyright owners? (Score:3)
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 ... (Score:2)