defamation – w w w . x e .s . c x

IT Law Forum on 12.11.2010

The IT Committee of the KL Bar, having organised two successful “mini” Forums on “Blogging & Defamation Law” and “Identity Theft in CyberSpace” in 2008, mooted a third Forum in 2009 but due to unforeseen circumstances, could not proceed with it. Intending to go beyond organising seasonal forums, the IT Committee embarked on this IT Law Forum some six months ago in the hope of making it an annual affair with the primary purpose of creating a platform for exchange of views and expansion of knowledge on areas of law related to IT.

This Forum, hosted at the KDU Law School, will see 3 topics being discussed. The opening topic concerns the discussion of imposing Internet Censorship in Malaysia. Borrowing the Chinese Government’s internet censorship’s nickname, ‘The Green Dam’, the topic is called, “The Green Dam – Internet Censorship…a Cat & Mouse Game?”. The principle discussion would be the legality of imposing such a “Dam” and the extent of censorship, if it ever happens in Malaysia. The IT Committee has long taken a stand that censorship on the internet is strongly disapproved. Instead, the appropriate approach would be to educate internet users on what should or should not be said on the Net. The speakers for this topic are Steven Gan of Malaysiakini, Jagdish Singh of Internet Society and H.R. Dipendra, an Advocate and Solicitor.

Another ‘hot’ topic up for discussion is the newly legislated Personal Data Protection Act. Professor Abu Bakar Munir of University Malaya, a leading academician on this area of law will be presenting his views on this new Act. It will be interesting to hear the views of the other delegates as well. This new Act has far reaching effects on the way Commercial businesses do their work and Professor Abu Bakar would be able to help elucidate on that.

The final topic will see a discussion on the future of Social Media. Recently, Newspapers in US and UK announced losses in advertising revenue. Advertisers now see the Social Media as an alternative place to advertise and this forum may discuss on that issue. The speakers would also likely discuss about the current status of social media in their industry and also the future of social media in Malaysia. This topic has attracted some top speakers, namely Nicholas Chay of Nuffnang, a social media advertising company with offices in Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and Philippines, well known blogger cum journalist Niki Cheong from The Star Newspaper and Azizi Jennis, Head of Online of DiGi.

~~There will be an Opening Address by Y.B. Dato’ Seri Utama Dr. Rais Yatim, Minister of Information, Communication and Culture.~~ Details of the Forum are:

Date
12 November 2010 (Friday)
Time
8.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.
Venue
KDU University College
Section 13 Campus
76 Jalan University
46200 Petaling Jaya

RM50 per participant. Only 100 seats available. Registration must be accompanied with payment to guarantee your place and strictly on a first-come, first-served basis. Click here for the registration form.

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I will be moderating the Future of Social Media session. Space is running out hence please sign up as soon as possible!

eLawyer Law Conference 2009 – Blogging & Law

The event was a great success. Many thanks to eLawyer and the attendees of this conference. A special thank you to all the students who volunteered to help out in organising the event.

Some of the students that helped out 😀

We started off slightly later than the scheduled time as many people were late due to the morning rain and traffic jam.

The crowd picked up quickly and swelled to probably around 200 people. Some of the participants were students, business owners and even lawyers. Fellow bloggers, Suanie, Peter Tan, Chris Tock, Zoe and Julian Hopkins were there as well. A accompanied me to the talk as well.

Me, Eddie, founder of eLawyer and Suanie

The event organiser, eLawyer is an online portal for law related industries. At eLawyer.com.my , you can post job vacancies for people with legal background e.g. lawyers, legal counsel, paralegals, secretaries, chambering students and even attachment students. You can even post legal questions for eLawyer‘s panel lawyers to answer.

The conference was organised to educate the general public on the laws that affects blogging in Malaysia. I was given the task of speaking about Intellectual Property and blogging. I spoke mainly about trade marks and copyright. The other speaker, namely, Nizam Bashir spoke on, among others, defamation and sedition. Both of us were given 45 minutes to speak and also a 15 minute Q and A session.
Nizam and I were speakers together with Jeff Ooi last year at the Forum on Blogging and Defamation held at the Bar Council. It was great to be speaking alongside with Nizam again.

Me and Nizam

After speaking at the rate of a speeding motor boat, the floor was opened for Q and A. Julian Hopkins came up with two questions about Creative Commons License, an item which I am not very familiar with. I managed to waffle my way through and took up other questions. I was then bombarded with numerous questions. It was kinda challenging especially when I had less than a minute to come out with an answer for each question. Fortunately, the questions were not so tough and I managed to waffle my way through again.

Julian Hopkins

Chris Tock

The Chairpersons came to the rescue when they announced that the Q and A session is over. But I wasn’t satisfied as I wanted to answer more questions! I felt that I fare better in Q and As than giving a boring talk.

Nizam

Nizam came up next and spoke about many interesting local cases involving blogs on defamation and sedition. RPK’s name came up numerous times. I hope there will be a reported judgement on his case to set as a precedent to many future cases.

After the talk and Nizam’s Q and A session, prizes were given to the participants and winners of the eLawyer Legal Blog Writing Contest 2008. Lee Shih and Fahri Azzat were the judges for this contest and they personally presented prizes to them.

Chris Tock, Me, Suanie and Zoe

At around 12:30pm, the conference ended. I was immediately approached by the media and some participants. The Chinese media was more interested in my Chinese name rather than what I had earlier mentioned. I guess they understood my talk clearly!

Fellow participant, Vince on the left waiting for me to write my name in Chinese. It looked like I’m giving my autograph.

After the talk, I had lunch with Suanie, Peter Tan and his wife, Julian Hopkins and A. If you’re a blogger or a blog reader, please head to http://www.budurl.com/myblogs2009 to complete a survey conducted by Julian. He’s doing a thesis on monetisation of Malaysian blogs for his PHD. I think this is beneficial for fellow Malaysians and thus please help out.

The conference was reported on Sin Chew Newspaper, China Press, Malaysiakini and New Straits Times. My face appeared on Sin Chew and New Straits Times. My face looked pale and my eyes looked red in NST. HEHE.

I look like I’m going to launch a fireball with my hands. Ka me haaa
Some people asked me whether I was paid to give the talk. No, I was not paid to give the talk. But eLawyer was nice enough to give a small token of appreciation.

My next talk will be 12 April 2009 at New Straits Times. I don’t have much details on the event but it has something to do with blogging for adults. I will be covering the legal part while some other bloggers will be covering technical aspect of blogging and even on public relation. Please come if you’re free!

Forum on Blogging & Defamation Laws

I had only one day to prepare for this talk. With the patent examination and conference, time was not on my side. I only managed to work on the slide in the bus back to KL and few hours before the talk.

Just when I thought I had everything in order, I discovered that I forgot to bring my name cards while on my way to the Bar Council. Fortunately, a colleague took the trouble to pass me my name cards.
The speakers for the Forum were Member of Parliament YB Jeff Ooi, lawyer Nizam Bashir and myself. Richard Wee started off with an introduction on defamation law and the current situation in Malaysia.

Thereafter, Nizam gave a presentation on the laws applicable on blogs e.g. defamation law, sedition and Communications and Multimedia Act. I on the other hand spoke about the liability of a blogger for defamation, a guide to handle defamation action and also a guide on how to reduce the risk of being threatened with a defamation suit. Jeff closed the panel’s speeches by talking about his blog and the steps he had taken to minimalize the risk of commentors posting defamatory comments.

The floor was opened after that. We had a good number of people coming to the mike to ask us questions. It was an extremely good crowd. It wasn’t the typical quiet Malaysian crowd. It was a very responsive crowd. We had bloggers, students, lawyers, journalist and even random members of the public asking us questions.

Julian Hopkins was one of the persons who stood up to ask questions
Some people speculated that the Special Branch will be there to check on the things that we will say. They suspected one chap who is a member of the Special Branch sitting among the crowd. But they soon realised that he’s actually a Bar Council employee.

After the forum ended, journalist rushed to Jeff Ooi to interview him. I took the opportunity to take some pictures!

Since I was young, public speaking has never been my liking. On many occasions, I shy away from speaking in public. Giving a talk to a room of 80 to 100 people was a giant leap for me.

I must say that anyone who has the same problem with me should try to overcome this problem especially when you are a young lawyer and you wish to market yourself.

I’ve been given an opportunity to write in The Star. I guess I will be writing about this topic in detail.