I REFER to Mr Ngiam Shih Tung's letter "Reconsider changes to Copyright Act" (ST, Aug 26). He has misunderstood the recent amendments. They do not give "private copyright owners the power to demand the removal of other people's websites without going through the courts".
No new powers are given to copyright owners to demand removal of materials. In fact, the amendments give network service providers additional protection against copyright lawsuits.
Hence, a network service provider will not be liable for copyright infringement in relation to materials it hosts at the direction of a user and materials to which it provides access. It does not have this special protection today.
When a copyright owner believes that a network service provider is hosting infringing materials, he can file a statutory declaration of infringement with the network service provider.
If this happens, the network service provider is not compelled by law to remove the materials. He has a choice. If he opts to remove the material after receiving the statutory declaration, the matter ends there and the network service provider cannot be sued.
The network service provider can also opt to ignore the statutory declaration, for instance, where he believes no copyright has been infringed. He will then be in no worse a position than he is today.
The copyright owner will then have to prove copyright infringement in a court of law. Hence, Mr Ngiam is wrong to conclude that "the purported copyright owner does not need to prove his charges in court or even to show reasonable cause to believe that copyright has been infringed".
The requirement that copyright owners file a statutory declaration is a safeguard against possible abuses. Making a false statutory declaration is an offence. A person who has his materials removed by a network service provider because of a false declaration can also seek compensation from the declarant in a civil action.
These amendments are not unique to Singapore. Similar amendments were introduced in the US late last year.
PANG KHANG CHAU
Deputy
Director
Ministry of Law
Originally published in the Straits Times, August 28, 1999.