Tech Legal

By Bryan Tan

Decipher courtroom jargons, stay on the right side of IT law

A melamine look at sticking with strict liability

Wednesday, September 24 2008 02:10 PM

Amid the tainted melamine milk product scandal in China, fingers are pointing in all directions and soon the knives will come out. While there exists finger-pointing in order to salvage reputation, the legal position on liability is quite clear. As a manufacturer of a product, two obligations are imposed--one is a contractual obligation, and the other is an obligation not to be negligent.

The contractual obligation requires that the product you sell works exactly like the product you claim it is. This is known as a strict obligation--it does not matter whose fault it is, as long as the product..... Read more »

A shield for Web site owners?

Thursday, August 14 2008 01:22 PM

Web site owners around the world run into one common legal problem-–liability for third-party content. Should a person be liable for content posted on a site by another, solely because he operates that Web site?

The possible scenarios vary from defamation on user forums (a hot favorite in Singapore) to hosting of pirated software and cracks on pirate sites. The attractiveness of such an avenue to found liabilty is simple--while the real perpetrator may be elusive, the Web site owner is easier to locate. The big boys are not immune, as eBay recently found, when it faced Read more »

What should be in Singapore's localized Creative Commons?

Monday, August 11 2008 11:12 AM

A while back, the government was all for nurturing creativity in Singapore--so the news of the Creative Commons must have sounded a good step in that direction.

The last week of July saw the announcement that Singapore will launch its localized version of the Creative Commons. A Creative Commons license is based on the "some rights reserved" concept. It gives the copyright owner the ability to dictate how others may exercise the copyright rights, such as the right of others to copy the work, make derivative works or adaptations, to distribute and/or make money from the work. It..... Read more »

The trouble with spam laws

Monday, August 04 2008 09:34 AM

I attended a recent briefing on Singapore's spam laws. While it was interesting and the speakers tried to get into the nuances of Singapore spam's legislation, the open floor round revealed some of the common problems plaguing spam laws.

First, everyone has a story to tell of his own spam experience...I get so many spam mail a day, or there is some irritating spam which I really hate, or I get some call center pushing some product over the phone. Second, everyone has his own..... Read more »

Kidneys for sale: A case of self-defense?

Monday, July 14 2008 02:56 PM

The news over the past few weeks in Singapore is that a few people have been charged in relation to two transactions where kidneys were offered for sale. So far, two sellers, one would-be buyer and two middlemen have faced various charges under the Human Organ Transplant Act ("HOTA"). As these cases are pending, I do not propose to venture into discussing specifics.

While organ transplant is not typically what you will see in a tech-law column, I would add that its impact would be. In a world where technology has enabled procedures such as organ transplanting to be possible, the..... Read more »

David takes on Goliath, in realm of copyright

Monday, July 07 2008 03:04 PM

On Saturday, news broke that Internet start-up RecordTV has sued Singapore's national broadcaster MediaCorp for revenue losses arising from MediaCorp's allegations that RecordTV's service, which allows users to download free-to-air programs and store them in an online database, infringes copyright laws.

RecordTV fired the first salvo last September by suing MediaCorp. It would be inappropriate to comment on the case while court proceedings are ongoing. This case will determine whether a service such as that offered by RecordTV, would constitute infringement of copyright.

Suffice it to say, to get to this stage, RecordTV probably used a little known provision in Singapore's..... Read more »

Sign o' the times

Friday, June 06 2008 05:30 PM

I have just returned from speaking at an international forum called eNotarisation, eApostilles and Digital Evidence.

The notarization of documents is a function dating back a few centuries which facilities the production of a copy of a document without producing the original. In some instances, the notary can even attest to the execution of the document.

Around the world, many transactions require notarization, including the execution of property transactions, especially in the civil law countries. The volumes attested to by notaries amount to millions annually. This makes it an obvious candidate for executing this type of document online, by..... Read more »

World of Internet patents lands on Singapore's shores

Wednesday, May 28 2008 10:30 AM

I have just written an alert for our clients pointing out that a Singapore company has asked for license fees for the use of what they claim is their technology--a method of locating Web pages by utilizing visual images.

According to Vuestar Technology's Web site, a license from the company is required for the clicking, scrolling or streaming over a visual image to connect with a Web site or Web page.

Such licenses are available on a per territory and per year basis. According to Vuestar,..... Read more »

Sex, lies and video(tape)s

Monday, May 26 2008 01:49 AM

After the Edison Chen episode, Singapore just had to get in on some action. Videos and censorship have recently made their way to the legal headlines again.

It first started out in late-April when a group of self-styled bloggers submitted recommendations believed to include the repealing of the Films Act.

However, before anything could happen, the censors swarmed in during the screening of a political film on Lee Kuan Yew on the grounds that "it would be an offence to screen a film that has not been submitted to the Board of Film Censors (BFC) for classification and..... Read more »

When the hunter becomes the hunted

Monday, April 14 2008 12:38 PM

I know this sounds like a Stephen King on Discovery channel special but it is not.

Life is sometimes funny. In the Iran-Iraq war of the early eighties, the United States leaned toward Saddam Hussein by sending then-special envoy Donald Rumsfield to meet the President in Baghdad. And in the final match of the 1988-89 season of the Football League First Division, Michael Thomas scored a last-minute goal to hand Arsenal the title above Liverpool--he was later transferred to Liverpool.

In a similar vein, last month, Singapore map company Virtual Map, provider of www.streetdirectory.com, found itself on the losing end of..... Read more »

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About the blogger

Bryan Tan

Called to the Singapore and English Bars, Bryan Tan has practised in two of Singapore’s largest law firms and an international law firm. Bryan led many industry firsts including the first mass e-mail defamation case in the world, Singapore’s first publicised telecoms competition dispute, a pan-Asian co-branded travel portal, the first privately-funded cable landing project in Singapore and the world's first registrar-level domain name dispute. His areas of practice include information technology, telecommunications, biotechnology and bioinformatics, Chinese intellectual property, entertainment law and corporate work. He is also an author of Halsbury's Laws of Malaysia: E-Commerce. He also co-wrote the Singapore chapter of 'Digital Evidence' with Prof. Daniel Seng and is writing Halsbury's Laws of Singapore: E-Commerce.