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!
Related Links
The New Straits Times Online: Blog with care, say lawyers
Malaysiakini – All about intellectual property & defamation law
