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Sober IT truths from the island-state

by Michael Tan, Singapore

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Singapore Judge Earnest Lau becomes a Net hero

Aug 25, 2007 12:46

Earnest Lau, a District Judge in Singapore, has just become a Net celebrity and a hero. Bloggers, forum visitors, anime lovers have all professed a love for him. Hero, god, FTW!!! It can't get any better for him.

Clamoring for pictures and additional data, the fans are mostly people who can't stand local anime distributor Odex and its lawyers Rajah and Tann's actions of sending letters demanding compensation from people who downloaded content via the Internet. It all started when Earnest Lau exercised his brain a little, thanks to local ISP Pacific Net's opposition to giving up subscribers' confidential information to Odex, and ruled in favor of Pacific Net--meaning that he turned down Odex's request for PacNet to give up the names and addresses of 1,000 subscribers.

He handled down a 14-page judgment, which (according to newspaper reports, I have not read the judgment):

1) Revealed that competing ISP SingNet just CONSENTED to giving up confidential subscriber names and addresses without a fight.

2) Upped the standard of proof required for requests of confidential subscriber names and addresses.

3) Insisted that only copyright owners and exclusive licensees of media content can start any action for copyright infringement.

4) Poured doubt that a mere list of IP addresses would be sufficient to meet the standard of proof required in order to force an ISP to give up confidential subscriber information.

Get some of the love here, here and here.

Of course, the latest confirmed Net villian is SingNet. Man, that's a huge PR disaster. Let's see if it even bothers wanting to recover from this, since it didn't even bother to send any lawyers to the hearing.

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Geekonomics

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Geekonomics says...
LOL... who first coined the term 'FTW' ah? I thought it was only a gamer term spelled in reverse.

Aug 25, 2007 13:38

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michaeltan

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michaeltan says...
for the win, rite?

Aug 25, 2007 14:36

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hobo

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hobo says...
Dun forget that Singnet does not only have a PR disaster...they are in breach of contract with all the pple whose names have been released (but have not dealt with ODEX directly yet)...oso Starhub is not in the clear informed sources have said that Starhub left it to the court to decide merits...sounds like a roll over to me...but the rebellion will be crushed...this being a TKO based on court procedure...and the empire will strike back and unfortunately in this case...no jedi will return...unless there is a change in the law...temporary reprieve kinda like panadol for migraine

Aug 26, 2007 11:46

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michaeltan

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michaeltan says...
that's a fun way to look at it Hobo, except for the Starhub thingie - don't we all make representations and leave it to the court to decide? starhub did make some representations according to the newspaper reports ... Drew and Napier.

Aug 27, 2007 09:49

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hobo

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hobo says...
You are right but assuming I go into a hearing and all I talk about is the how much it costs me to comply with the order applied for and say nothing about merits or whether in principle ODEX can get the order or not...I'm thinking Sxyxyxb dog was in heat...he rolled over...so you may be right that they left it to the courts...but the issue is the content of the reps and the SH doggy has been quite silent on what he barked in respect of the merits...should be easy enough for PACNET's lawyers to see what SH said in the hearing...but probably waste of a serach fee...woof!

Aug 27, 2007 15:03

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michaeltan

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michaeltan says...
yes all you need is a praecipe and you can see what you want.

Aug 27, 2007 17:29

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About Michael Tan

Michael Tan is lucky enough not to have to choose between his job and his passion. He is the responsible for all aspects of developing new businesses and sourcing new productlines for a regional IT distribution company. He also oversees the company's legal affairs as General Counsel. In real life, he is a technology enthusiast, from both the fun and business viewpoint. The only choices he has to make are whether to play with his astro telescopes, his PC games, his Wii console, hit the track, tweak his car, or refine his biofilters, post his blogs, research for a new digicam, scour every forum to feed his habit further, play with his son… You can reach Michael at michaeltanyk@gmail.com ALL BLOGPOSTS ONLY REFLECT MICHAEL'S OPINIONS AND NOBODY ELSES'.