Indrani Thuraisingham - Malaysian Law Review

Slide 1: The global voice La voz global para la defensa La voix des Consommateurs for consumers de los consumidores à travers le monde Malaysian Copyright Law Review

Slide 2: Copyright and Access to Knowledge q Since 2005, CI Kuala Lumpur has conducted a successful project on Copyright and A2K q Main findings: – National copyright laws don’t fully utilize the exceptions and provisions provided for in international treaties to enhance access to knowledge

Slide 3: Law Reviews q Following from the copyright project – Indonesian law review – Malaysian law review – National stakeholder workshop

Slide 4: Malaysian copyright law q Malaysia copyright act 1987 q Amended in 1990, 1996, 1997, 2000,2002, and 2003 q Malaysia is a member of the Berne convention and the TRIPS agreement q Malaysia is yet to accede to the WCT and the WPPT, but most of the substantive provisions have already been incorporated into national copyright law

Slide 5: Fair use q Now: fair dealing is restricted to a specific set of purposes mentioned in the copyright law, such as non-profit research or review q CIKL wants four non exclusive statutory factors – The purpose and the character of the dealing – the nature of the copyrighted work – the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyright work as a whole – the effect of the dealing upon the potential market for or value of the copyright work

Slide 6: Educational institution q Now: The definition of educational institution is narrow q CIKL wants to broaden the definition that better reflects current educational needs

Slide 7: Distance education q Now: no explicit exceptions for distance education are included in the copyright law. q CIKL wants to include specific new exceptions in the Malaysian copyright law to: – enable educational institutions to digitize reading materials for purposes of online correspondence – exempt the communication of lessons to enable systematic instruction to take place

Slide 8: Circumvention of Technological Protection Measures q Now: the article concerning the circumvention of TPMs is rather unclear q CIKL wants to amend the article to: – make it more clear – to make the manufacturing and marketing of a circumvention device an offence, and not the act of circumvention itself.

Slide 9: Next steps q The Malaysian law review - that a lot can be done to improve access to knowledge while simply implementing the flexibilities already provided for in International treaties q CIKL hopes that organisations in other countries will also review their national copyright laws and make clear recommendations to their governments q Only then, knowledge material can become accessible for every consumer throughout the world

Slide 10: The global voice La voz global para la defensa La voix des Consommateurs for consumers de los consumidores à travers le monde Thank you for your attention