Two recent copyright-related news in Singapore

Here are two recent copyright-related news in Singapore. Since Creative Commons is built on the foundation of Copyright, these two cases would be of interest to those following the Creative Commons movement.

#1 – They’ve only just begun – to charge
TODAYonline. 28 Dec ‘09.

“… the Composers and Authors Society of Singapore (Compass)… is clamping down on the illegal use of copyrighted music for weddings.

… It has sent letters to wedding photographers and videographers asking them to buy the licences for songs they wish to use – on their corporate websites and in their works – while stopping short of suggesting active enforcement.”

LINK
The article mentions some wedding photographers/ videographers advising their customers not to use copyrighted songs in their amateur montages. One customer was quoted as saying that he has decided to “do away with music completely on his photo montage, to be shown during his wedding reception next month.“

#2 – MediaCorp wins counter claims of copyright infringement against RecordTV
channelnewsasia.com. 21 Dec ‘09.

“RecordTV was held by the High Court to have infringed copyright laws by allowing users to record programmes shown on MediaCorp’s Channel 5, Channel 8 and Channel NewsAsia.

In 2007, RecordTV had sued MediaCorp for millions of dollars for groundless threats of copyright infringement. MediaCorp then counter sued.

… The judge ruled that RecordTV is liable for copyright infringement by communicating MediaCorp’s broadcasts and films to the public, and he granted MediaCorp’s request for an injunction against RecordTV.

Justice Ang also ruled that damages in favour of MediaCorp would be assessed by the Registrar.”

LINK

Related: The High Court’s judgment was reported in this article, Copyright law and the digital revolution: High Court judge lays out grounds of judgment, TODAYonline. 30 Dec ‘09:

“”As technology advances, and consumers are more able to consume media in different ways, Justice Ang said “it cannot be that copyright law would have thieves of us all”.

Reformation of copyright laws to “reflect a wide array of societal interests in the digital revolution” will be a challenge to lawmakers, the industry and the public for some time to come, he said.

But the judge gave examples of how legal principles – or “straightforward, immutable maxims” – can still guide judgments.

“It is permissible to time-shift (viewing of broadcasts through recordings). It is not permissible to copy for profit. It is permissible to copy extracts for educational purposes. It is not permissible to authorise another to copy when one does not possess that authority,” he wrote in his 36-page judgment.

Stating his reasons for allowing a counter claim of copyright infringement by MediaCorp against Internet start-up RecordTV, he said he found RecordTV not liable for making infringing copies of the MediaCorp Broadcasts and Films, but found it liable for authorising the making of copies by its customers.”

LINK

CC Adopter: Youth.SG blog

I just spotted a CC logo at Singapore’s very own Youth.SG blog:

From their About Page (dated 28 Dec 2005):

Launched in February 2006, Youth.SG is a young, but strange creature. Strange, because, to put it simply, we, like the youth we serve, see the world through young eyes. And no young eyes see the world in quite the same way.

BTW, only the blog content is CC-licensed (youth.sg/blog), rather than the entire site (youth.sg). At least as of this post. :)

“Do we have to apply to get a CC license?” and other questions

Some people have asked CC-SG members:

Question: Do we have to apply to get a CC license?

Question: If I upload stuff for others to use, all i have to do is specify that I want to have [the work] covered under CC license and that’s considered done?

Question: How is CC different from Copyright.

Well, I was going to create our own FAQ section for Creative Commons Singapore. But why reinvent the wheel?

The CreativeCommons.org site already has an excellent compilation of responses to FAQs about CC, covering questions asked by people thinking about applying a Creative Commons license to their work, to those thinking about using other people’s Creative Commons-licensed work, to those interested in Technical Questions (like incorporating CC metadata), and by people who are just curious about the concept and organisation behind Creative Commons.

CC-SG Adopter: Firdaus “My Music Haven”

I got to know Firdaus from the Songcraft Songwriting Circle. Here’s his self-produced online album titled “Souled Out (2009)”, released under a CC-BY-NC-ND Singapore 3.0. license.

His album can be downloaded as a zip file, here.

Singapore – CC Monitor

For those interested in Creative Commons related data for Singapore and other jurisdictions, check out the CC Monitor site at monitor.creativecommons.org/Main_Page. It is a site that “contains automatically collected data, graphs, research and collectively written commentary on the global adoption of Creative Commons licenses”.

From the page on Singapore:

Compared to the rest of Asia, Singapore has a higher freedom score. With 31.5% of Singaporeans choosing the most liberal BY license, compared to Asia with 7.1%. BY-NC-ND was also a popular choice with almost 24%. However, compared to 43.7% of Asia choosing the same license, Singaporeans still choose less restrictive licenses as a whole.

[Last accessed 10 Oct '09]

CC Monitor is a project initiated by Creative Commons and the Communications and New Media Programme of the National University of Singapore, with support from the Social Science Research Council and the Ford Foundation. Content is available under Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

BTW, our CC SG public lead, Giorgos Cheliotis, is also a founding member of the CC Monitor project. Several other contributors are also based in Singapore, like Ankit Guglani (SMU), Clint Gono (SMU), Jackson Tan (NUS), Pratichi Joshi (NUS), Sofia Morales (NUS). The Singapore page (as of 12 May ‘09) includes responses from CC-SG community manager, Ivan Chew (in response to an interview by Jackson Tan, as well as from Giorgos Cheliotis.

If you have insights to share about CC-adoption in Singapore (e.g. you’re a CC-adoptor yourself or you consciously do not want to adopt CC), the CC-SG team would love to hear from you.

Collaborative Creative Commons music album: “2009 Twilight Under Velveteen Skies”

I’m an advocate of Creative Commons. Because CC was the foundation that allowed me to produce this:

Album cover adapted from “Leo Rising Over Trees, November 2002“, originally uploaded by alexpgp/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Album: “2009 Twilight Under The Velveteen Skies”.
By Ivan Chew and ccMixter friends:

• Mikael Hansson aka colab – www.myspace.com/colabtoronto
• teru – terumusic.blogspot.com
• narva9 – narva9.blogspot.com

2009 Twilight Under Velveteen Skies by Ivan Chew & ccMixter Friends is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Singapore License.

Download the album at www.archive.org/details/2009TwilightUnderVelveteenSkies.

It’s a collaborative effort, featuring three other very talented and very cool people I befriended at ccMixter. It includes an original 4-way collaborative track, pieced together without having met one another.

Here’s the title track, Under The Velveteen Skies

Details of how the collaboration came about, here.

~ Ivan

CC-Adopter: Aiden Ng (aka aL.Chemistry)

I learned about Singaporean musician Aiden Ng’s (aka aL.Chemistry) CC-licensed music album when he posted the link at www.SOFT.com.sg.

“E N C I R C L I N G”, licensed under a Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Singapore license.

Track List:
01.Helium
02.Malt
03.Birthday Pie
04.Skylark
05.Sleep
06.Paper-like Heart
07.Interlude
08.Robot #09
09.Photograph
10.December
11.Raindrops
12.Motion Recycle
13.Vapour Trail
14.Winter Solstice
[Download the album at Archive.org]

From Aiden’s MySpace page:

aL.Chemistry is Aiden Ng, a sonic artist who quested himself to the experimentation of sound. Born in Singapore, a multi-cultural city where aL.Chemistry based his sound arts upon. Being inspired by the everyday sound of the surrounding, he fuses samples of “found sounds” with toy instruments and electronic musical means. aL.Chemistry seeks a different approach in his musical composition where he ventured into unconventional methods of creating moving aural textures. Contact email: al.chemistry.0@gmail.com

CC-Adopter: Vicki Lim

While hunting down some music, I happened to come across Vicki Lim’s Flickr photostream. Noticed she’s adopted a CC license (Flickr is still at version 2.0) so I emailed her to ask if she could answer a few questions for this blog.

Vicki is a 16-year old student, so far the youngest CC-adopter I know. I’m impressed by her responses to the questions. She showed an understanding of CC that’s ahead of some adults, in my opinion. More about Vicki at the end of this post.

Here’s her verbatim responses:

Q: How did you learn about Creative Commons?
I learnt about Creative Commons through through Flickr under their photo-licensing scheme.

Q: Why did you adopt CC?
I adopted CC as I wanted a way to ensure that I would be given due credit for my hard work if my photos were to be used. I chose the ‘Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons’ as I found it best suited my needs, and also allowing others to download my works and share them with others as long as they mention and link back to me, but they can’t alter my pictures or use them commercially for monetary profits or otherwise.

Q: Did you find that CC has helped you in terms of being a photographer? Or, have you noticed your work being used by other people (e.g. their blogs)?
CC has helped me in terms of being a photographer by helping to protect my intellectual property, and thanks to CC, when people want to use my works, they actually approach me and ask for permission. There are a few sites on which my works are displayed (with permission granted)
www.nowpublic.com/world/first-antarctic-night-vision-flight
www.myspace.com/roslimansor
www.myspace.com/madhattersg
www.terrabox.wordpress.com
and also my school publications, and a few others, which I’ve unfortunately lost track of.

Q: Any other comments about CC?
I find CC to be a very helpful way in which I can share my works with the world, and also as use of a way to help people recognise that they are in fact, mine.

However, the only gripe about it would probably be the fact that despite the fact I have a CC licence, there have also been certain people who use my pictures without crediting, and that irks me to no end as there isn’t exactly a very strong ruling in Singapore that protects my works. Weighing it as a whole though, I find the CC movement to be ingenious and very, very useful.

Q: Can you explain more how you see CC helping you protect your intellectual property rights? Did you experience otherwise before you adopted CC? E.g. no one asked you for permission?
With the widespread influence of the Internet, my pictures in Flickr taken in Singapore have been used in sites all over the world. Most of those I’ve managed to find have credited me, because they know of the CC-licensing scheme, and specifically the CC licence that I’ve chosen.

Before I adopted CC, there were a few individuals that used my pictures without permission and crediting me, but I saw a change in those numbers after adopting CC as most people do know what my CC licence on my pictures permit them to do with the pictures.

And if they don’t, information on the Creative Commons is easily attainable on any search engine (:

Q: Just curious why they would ask you for permission when you’ve adopted a CC license. Permission is already granted in that sense.
I think it’s more of a formality, but it’s a welcome one nonetheless. I like to thank the people who use my pictures personally; and if they tell me who they are, where they’re using it and what for, it saves me the trouble of having to scour the world-wide web for my pictures (;

Q: Do you know of your peers who adopt CC? Or do you consider yourself the minority (i.e. the rest won’t care)?
Photography wise, I only know 2 friends of mine who adopt CC, so yes I’m still largely in the minority. I don’t think it’s really because of nonchalance, it’s more of ignorance (not knowing about CC), and seeing no particular need for licensing their works.

Vicki adds:

Online I go mostly by the alias ‘Vickomaniac’, and my works can be found here at www.flickr.com/photos/vickomaniac . I shoot with a Sony Alpha 700, usually coupled with a Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar T* 16-80 and a Sony Alpha HVL-58AM flash. I started photography with a DSLR in Mid-08, and I usually prefer to shoot in Black and White as it strips a photo down to the bare necessities and it causes the viewer to imagine it in colours (if they so wish), while ensuring the focus is on the subject.

My favourite photo subjects are people and animals; to be exact: Musicians, Sportspeople and Dogs, which happen to infuse all my personal loves such as Music, Taekwondo, Basketball and of course, the Canines.

As of now, I am extremely honoured to be given the opportunity to be working with Rosli Mansor, Singapore’s first Rock Guitar Instrumentalist as his photographer. After the debut of his first album ‘Dragged’ in January 2007, he is currently working on his second album, and more info about him can be found at www.room354.com and www.myspace.com/roslimansor.

In the future, I hope to be able to experience the beautiful sights and sounds of our diverse planet and chronicle them with the help of my camera, and sharing them with the rest of the world.

Thanks for the email interview, Vicki. I think she’s taking her exams now, so good luck!

Creative Commons SG team meets Creative Crew Singapore

Yesterday evening, Chung Nian and myself (Giorgos was out of the country) met three very cool dudes from Creative Crew Singapore – Linus, Carlsson and Stefano.

The guys don’t have an About Page on their website, so I’ll just sum up what I know about them:

• They hold regular meetings every 2nd Tuesdays of each month. I think about 20 to 30 people attend each meeting. Anyone can walk in and attend the meeting. No fees or membership registration required.
• Each meeting features three to four speakers, each speaking for 20 mins.
• Speakers share, on a voluntary basis, their domain knowledge relating to creative works. E.g. using Photoshop, Video Encoding, 3D software. If I got my info right, speakers are not limited to only software or specific IT domains. They would like to gradually include a broader range of creative domains (e.g. music, art, writing, photography, IP awareness even)
• Creative Crew SG members also create and share stuff, like tutorials, at the site.

The meeting was an introductory one. More to touch-base and throw up some ideas for possible future actions. Here’s are some ideas we  discussed (I emphasise that they are ideas at this stage):

Design of publicity/ CC educational materials
We discussed the possibility of CCrewSG creating a Singapore-version Creative Commons brochure/ publication/ handbook. Something like what CC-Australia has done, at creativecommons.org.au/infopacks (btw, I particularly like this poster). By “Singapore-version”, we meant something that will fit the local context. E.g. how local creatives may think, wonder, be concerned about adopting CC.

Sharing session on Creative Commons
Creative Crew SG invited Chung Nian to share at the 11 Aug Creative Crew SG meeting. It’ll be sort of a follow-up from what I shared at the Creative Crew SG meeting in Mar 09.

Monthly CC feature
Idea is to feature a Creative Commons licensed work for the month. This could be something contributed by Creative Crew SG members (e.g. photo, video, text). Or Creative Crew SG could release the videos of their meetings under a CC license. Or incorporate CC-licensed music in their videos and credit the music.

As I post this, more emails are being exchanged. I can’t speak for Creative Crew SG, but I think we’re generally in agreement that we’ll start with something small and doable at this stage.

Everyone has their day job. Creative Crew SG — and CC-SG — are all being run on a voluntary on-personal-time basis. Probably the same as all CC movement worldwide. I’m sure it’s also what makes the CC movement worthwhile.

~ Ivan

YouTube now disabling audio rather than removing entire video

Interesting… YouTube is now disabling the audio rather than removing the entire video (where the audio copyright is in dispute or there are infringements).

The notice says: “The video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by [name of music publisher]. The audio has been disabled. More about copyright.”

Here’s a screenshot of the notice (click on the image for larger size):

(I took the screenshot from this video I stumbled upon.)

Apparently it was quietly introduced since Jan 2009, as I discovered from posts like this and this.

I’d suggest YouTube could go one step further: suggest or direct the YouTube user to sites like ccMixter for suitable CC licensed materials.

Or include a para or link to Creative Commons at their YouTube “More about Copyright” page :)

~ Ivan