La voix des Consommateurs à travers le monde

The global voice for consumers

La voz global para la defensa

de los consumidores

Malaysian Copyright Law Review

Copyright and Access to Knowledge

Since 2005, CI Kuala Lumpur has conducted a successful project on Copyright and A2K

Main findings:– National copyright laws don’t fully utilize the

exceptions and provisions provided for in international treaties to enhance access to knowledge

Law Reviews

Following from the copyright project– Indonesian law review– Malaysian law review– National stakeholder workshop

Malaysian copyright law

Malaysia copyright act 1987 Amended in 1990, 1996, 1997, 2000,2002, and 2003 Malaysia is a member of the Berne convention and the

TRIPS agreement 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

Fair use

Now: fair dealing is restricted to a specific set of purposes mentioned in the copyright law, such as non-profit research or review

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

Educational institution

Now: The definition of educational institution is narrow

CIKL wants to broaden the definition that better reflects current educational needs

Distance education

Now: no explicit exceptions for distance education are included in the copyright law.

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

Circumvention of Technological Protection Measures

Now: the article concerning the circumvention of TPMs is rather unclear

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.

Next steps

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

CIKL hopes that organisations in other countries will also review their national copyright laws and make clear recommendations to their governments

Only then, knowledge material can become accessible for every consumer throughout the world

La voix des Consommateurs à travers le monde

The global voice for consumers

La voz global para la defensa

de los consumidores

Thank you for your attention