I’ve had some ideas to blog about, but I am having trouble finding the effort to put my thoughts down into coherent post.
So I thought I’ll list them down and see if anyone wants to pick them up.
- Malaysia’s large disregard for intellectual property
- Treatment of Copyrighted work as if it were in the public domain
- The perception that Malaysians are content consumers and not creators
- The catch 22 in that Malaysians will trust foreign brands more than local ones (Not common to Malaysia)
- Perception that most Malaysian creators are of low quality (yes there is the success of Lat, but how many more are there?)
- Trust, and confidence in local brands
- The Internet leveling the playing field (I’ve been told to read “The World Is Flat“)
- The Internet and the commons
- The public domain and the commons
- Preservation of culture through the commons and the Internet
- ICT
for accelerating/aiding Development
- Transfer of technology and knowledge (think Free Culture), and bridging the digital/knowledge divide
- Persistence over the norms, over technical merit
- The wealthy nation problem
- Does Free Culture depend on a merit based culture/society?
- Building content creators
- Building a knowledge economy
I somehow think they can all be weaved together.
Starting with the current state of Malaysia’s disregard for Intellectual Property Rights, and going into how to improve that by building the trust, confidence, perception in Malaysian products by leveraging the free flow of information out there. But the biggest problem I forsee is that there will be persistence to stick with the norms as its easier to pay for it, especially in a wealthy nation. This raises the question of what does Free Culture depend upon a merit based culture?
Sounds like it would be a good series of articles to do though.
Most of you have probably heard of the dogs Lucky and Flo that has given Malaysia alot of airtime lately in international news.
If you haven’t heard, its a strange case of believe it or not, these two dogs are especially trained to sniff out pirated DVDs! Believe it or not.
Its an interesting way to find pirated DVDs, and I had planned many times to write up posts on the issues of copyright, the success of Lucky and Flo, and the potential impact (goods and bads) that it may have. But today, I decided to actually publish something at least.
The Star reports that Malaysia is in line for a new court dealing with Intellectual Property and a new Act to go along with it. Like good buddies!
A new act eh? Makes me all the more curious as what could possible be in it…
Shafie also announced the drafting of a new Act to address the problem of illegal movie recording in cineplexes.
Although current laws relating to copyright and IP can be used to prosecute offenders, they may be some loopholes in them.
“The current laws may not cover the newer recording gadgets or technologies so that’s why we need a new law,” Shafie said.
He said the ministry is now discussing with the Attorney General’s Chambers in drafting the “anti-camcording” law but he cannot specify when it will be completed.
Will it strengthen Intellectual Property in Malaysia, and how?
In another article by the Star, they report that Malaysian awareness for Intellectual Property is low.
Now you didn’t need the Star to tell you did. I could have done so myself.
Of the hundreds of utility innovations and industrial designs patented every year, only about 8% of the applications were from Malaysians, he said.
- Intellectual Property does not comprise of only Patents.
- Patents are not an indicator of the “intellectual capacity” of a country
Going back to the first article it brings up:
Shafie said the cause for the delay was locating qualified judges that would be able to hear these cases.
Note: Emphasis by me.
In general its difficult to find people qualified to discuss intellectual property (I wonder if I’m qualified), due to the large disregard for Intellectual Property in Malaysia. Everyone knows it. Copyrighted work gets treated as if it were in the public domain over here.
Alright, lets give it some leeway in that the first article was focused on movies, and the second one on patents.
I personally think the bigger problem that needs to be addressed is exactly that: Malaysians have a large disregard for Intellectual Property.
And I don’t think anyone here could argue against that. Therefore, will these actions being taken, address that issue?
Is the ill treatment of Intellectual Property good or bad? Well that is for another article.
My take is that I have benefited (not financially, but technically) from the proliferation and easy accessibility to pirated software. I am not the only one who has. I can guarantee you that a lot of Malaysia’s youth have as well.
Does this make the act of piracy any less bad? Perhaps. Yes it is bad to steal another person’s work.
So how do I give people the “easy accessibility” to tools, Free and Open Source Software. Because you have the right to give it away, for free or for profit.
If you want to remove piracy, at least make it easy for students to access the same materials, easily, (hopefully freely or extremely low cost), and legitly. First things that come to mind…Free Culture content, Creative Commons licensed content, Wikipedia.
Looking at it from another perspective, who are the biggest proponents for stronger Intellectual Property Rights? Who would also have the biggest gains?
Intellectual Property Rights is confusing stuff!
I was brought up to this article ‘Microsoft to power halal industry ICT system‘ by Yoon Kit.
Ok…keyword: Microsoft, lets continue.
The system, to be called the Malaysian International Halal Hub Open XML System, will be based on the Open XML document standard, according to Microsoft Malaysia general manager Yasmin Mahmood.
…
However, Yasmin said, Microsoft is keen to get the Halal Hub project going as soon as is practical.
My take, they want an OpenXML implementation as soon as possible as it’ll look good in their book.
“We went with Microsoft as a partner for this project because it is the largest software company in the world and it has the resources to help make the project a success,” he (HDC chairman Tan Seri Syed Jalaludin Syed Salim) said.
Not a smart choice. Just because they are ‘big’ doesn’t meet it equates to the best choice. Windows Vista is just taking off, and it is littered with problems. Not including the long delay. If you want, forget the software, but internally as well. Just Google it up.
Bill Gates may go around and say “We’ve sold 40 million licenses“. But I bet that take into account licenses sold by OEM, through Laptops and normal machines. And people are buying more machines now than they did when Windows XP was released.
On a side note, can the FOSS capacity in Malaysia provide better services?
Or am I just paranoid?
