- Leading artists, Red Hong Yi & Namewee cash in on hot 2021 NFT market
- Eye on digital banking institutions, Grab and constitutionality of s. 233 from the CMA 1998
2021 noticed the rise of Non Fungible Token (NFT) in Malaysia. Malaysian artists Red Hong Yi documented sold her NFT art, known as Doge to the Moon intended for 36. 3 ETH which was valued on RM325, 000. The particular successful bidder from the NFT owns both the physical (i. e. a copper plate) and digital artworks. Malaysian singer, Namewee (pic, above) furthermore sold 100 NFTs of his track which reportedly valued at RM3. five million. Particulars of the sale of these NFTs are not publicly recognized.
[RM1 =US$0.224]
There is no legal definition to the expression NFT in Malaysia. But it can be described as an electronic digital token, and an electronic asset. It is saved on a digital ledger, called a blockchain. It can be traded with an online marketplace such as OpenSea and Binance. In Malaysia, we have our own online industry such as pentas. io.
It is almost always represented by an item, such as a digital art, a song or even a video. However , the initial thing about NFT is that a person purchasing the NFT will not necessary own the intellectual property in the NFT. For example , you may have bought an NFT of a digital art that the creator had issued 100 tokens. You happen to be the owner of that particular expression. The owner of the mental property residing in that digital work might still be the inventor or the intellectual house owner.
This may sound novel but when we compare this particular with a real-life situation, this is nothing new. We can see this within stamps trading or even trading card such as football cards or even Pokémon cards. You can trade such stamps or cards with out limitation but the mental property rights in those artistic function will still belong to the copyright proprietor. The value of an item depends on how rare it is, and the same product may differ in value depending on various situations such as its situation, the year of production, the number of circulating duplicates etc .
The United States Courts are actually dealing with NFT conflicts. In Roc-A-Fella Records, Inc. v. Splash, 1: 21-cv-05411-JPC (S. D. N. Y. Jul. 29, 2021), the plaintiff is the owner of all rights towards the album Reasonable Question, including its copyright. It alleged which the defendant —a minority shareholder in the corporation — unlawfully took and attempted to auction the copyright to Reasonable Doubt being an NFT.
In Miramax, LLC v Quentin Tarantino et al (US Region Court, Central District of California: 2: 21-cv-08979), production corporation Miramax sued movie director Quentin Tarantino after he or she announced that he would be auctioning off “exclusive scenes” from the 1994 motion picture Pulp Hype in the form of NFTs. According to his website www.tarantinonfts.com , “the collection keeps secrets from Pulp Fiction, ” and “each NFT includes one or more previously unfamiliar secrets of a particular iconic scene through Pulp Fiction”. The particular “privileged” purchasers “will get a hold of those secrets”.
Up to now, there is no reported case about NFTs in our Courts. However , there are many complaints by copyright owners about their particular work being used on NFTs and deeply in love with NFT marketplaces. Tips were also taken by companies to ensure that their own trade mark protection extends to NFTs. For example , Riot Games, Incorporation, the brand of owner of the popular game League of Stories, have filed a software to register their business mark which included “digital materials, namely, nonfungible tokens (NFTs)” using the Intellectual Property Company of Malaysia.
Love ripoffs
Public Prosecutor v Wang Jianquan [2021] MLJU 1708; [2021] 5 LNS 109 is an interesting case about a “love scam” operation within Malaysia. The accused was one of the two (2) Chinese nationals arrested and researched for love fraud activities deceiving Chinese nationals. There were nine (9) Malaysians involved too. One of the items seized was a workout book containing “script of conversation” used against the victims.
The analysis revealed that the mobile phone belonged to one of the arrestees (B8), contained the girl semi-nude photos, which were sent to the potential sufferers by the rest of the arrestees (including the accused person). The arrestees would first communicate with the victims. The particular said arrestee (B8) would make a video call to the victims and lured them into exposing themselves (literally – by exposing their private part). The video calls were recorded and used to extort funds from the victims. Refusal to accede for their request was on the peril of the obscene videos and photos being revealed to the particular victim’s family members.
The arrested pleaded guilty to an offence under s i9000. 420 of the Penal Code (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and was sentenced to an one month imprisonment and RM8, 000 good, in default of payment two months imprisonment.
The learned Magistrate was of the view that the offence concerns conspiracy in order to cheat. The manner the offence was committed was horrendous. The victims were attracted and deceived directly into exposing their personal parts, which was captured and used as being a bargaining chip in order to extort money, making the victim with the only other option of perpetual embarrassment dealing with their own family members. It is inhuman, gross plus short of dignity. Scaling the plea of guilty as well as being a first offender contrary to the manner of the offence was committed will not tip the level in favour of the arrested person.
The learned Justice of the peace also took judicial notice of the prevalence of online scam-related activity in Malaysia. Statistics issued simply by CyberSecurity Malaysia display that online fraud has continued to be the best reported incidents totalling 7, 774 reports in 2019, 5123 reports in 2018, and 3, 821 reports in 2017, compared to other occurrences, i. e. internet harassment, intrusion attempt, denial of provider, vulnerabilities report, content-related, spam, malicious program code and intrusion. In 2020, out of 6, 366 online occurrence cases reported, 6, 048 were online fraud cases.
Service associated with Court Documents on Fb
Last year, I reported that the High Court allowed the particular service of court documents on Facebook Malaysia Sdn Bhd as the Court found that Facebook Malaysia could be the agent of Facebook, Inc under Order 10 Rule 2 of the Rules of Court 2012 ( Abu Jamal Bin Sulaiman & Anor v Facebook, Inc (Kuala Lumpur Higher Court Original Subpoena No . WA-24NCVC-57)).
The Court of Appeal nevertheless has overturned your decision in Civil Charm No . W-02(IM)(NCvC)-1222-09/2020 around the grounds that, amongst others, there is insufficient evidence to prove that will Facebook Malaysia Sdn Bhd is an agent of Facebook, Incorporation.
Upon another note, Facebook, Inc changed its name to Meta Platforms, Inc. Any kind of legal action filed against Facebook, Inc in Malaysia need to now be against Meta Platforms, Inc plus served on to these an order in order to serve out of jurisdiction to their office within California, United States.
Whether Grab drivers are “employees”
Last year, I documented that one Loh Guet Ching filed a good action for judicial review ( Loh Guet Ching v. Menteri Sumber Manusia & Ors (Kuala Lumpur High Court Judicial Review Software No . WA-25-296-10/2020) right after Minister of Transport refused to recommend the matter to the Commercial Court. She acquired earlier brought a case against Grab on the Labour Department after she was terminated as an e-hailing operater. The High Court dismissed the application for judicial review. She has now brought the matter to the Court of Appeal.
Shutting
In 2022, we can expect more interesting developments within the cyberlaw and IT world.
: New NFT legal disputes are starting in order to pop in Courts beginning of 2022. It was reported OpenSea has been sued by an user of its platform following the latter’s “Bored Guinea pig Yacht Club NFT – Bored Ape #3475” was taken when OpenSea has been hacked (McKimmy v. OpenSea, No . 4: 22-cv-00545). The same “Bored Ape Yatch Clut NFT” was a subject matter of another argument in the Singapore Higher Court where the Singapore High Court experienced blocked potential selling and transfer of the said NFT after an online user by the name of “chefpierre” had taken it wrongfully from your pet.
Interim, local artist Fahmi Reza launched a NFT of their Monyet Istana art work on his website monyetistana. com to raise funds for the Freedom associated with Expression Legal Protection Fund. The lawful fund will help assistance fellow Malaysians who are investigated and prosecuted for exercising their particular right to freedom associated with expression. He successfully raised RM48, 000 from the sale of this NFT in forty eight hours. However , it was later reported that monyetistana. com has been blocked from accessibility by our nearby internet service providers.
Three additional noteworthy developments I will follow this year are:
Bank Negara has awarded digital banking licences to five consortiums. Three consortiums, namely Boost Holdings Sdn Bhd and RHB Bank Bhd, GXS Bank and Kuok Brothers, and SEA and YTL Electronic Capital will be licensed under the Financial Services Respond 2013.
Meanwhile, a consortium comprising AEON Monetary Service Co Ltd, AEON Credit Provider (M) Bhd plus MoneyLion Inc, and also a consortium led simply by KAF Investment Bank will be licensed underneath the Islamic Financial Services Act 2013. These brand new banks can help people and businesses gain better access to more personalised solutions supported by data analytics. It will be interesting to find out what cyber and electronic legal issues that may arise from this brand new industry.
Health news portal CodeBlue broke this news about the ownership associated with Malaysia’s contact doing a trace for application, MySejahtera, which stores the personal information of millions of Malaysians and its residence.
Whilst the Government had claimed possession of the MySejahtera application, CodeBlue revealed that one Entomo Malaysia Sdn Bhd was the proprietor of the intellectual home rights (except for the trade mark plus date collected through MySejahtera which is possessed by the Government of Malaysia) in and also to MySejahtera application, and thereafter transferred this to one MySj Sdn Bhd.
This was based on the Court papers revealed in the shareholder disputes between the business behind MySejahtera (P2 Asset Management Sdn Bhd v MySj Sdn Bhd (Kuala Lumpur High Courtroom Suit No . WA-22NCC-516-11/2021), Hasrat Budi Sdn Bhd v Entomo Malaysia Sdn Bhd (Kuala Lumpur Higher Court Suit Number WA-24NCC-118-02/2022)).
The Government of Malaysia later clarified it only owned the particular trade mark plus certain modules and their source requirements. There are other rights moving into the MySejahtera app which is owned simply by other parties. Nonetheless, it seems that the Government associated with Malaysia is slowly transitioning MySejahtera to a non-Covid-19 pandemic related application.
And, to close, activist Heidy Quah Gaik Li’s problem to the constitutionality associated with s. 233 of the Communications and Media Act 1998 hit a wall following the High Court declined to refer the matter to the Federal Court based on the following query – Whether the supply of s. 233 of Communications plus Multimedia Act 1998 is a permissible limitation under Art. 10(2)(a) Federal Constitution examine together with Article 6 Federal Constitution (infringement of freedom associated with speech & expression).
The matter is now pending on the Court of Appeal (Heidy Quah Gaik Li v Kerajaan Malaysia (Civil Appeal No . B-01(IM)-130-03/2022)). The lady was earlier billed for sharing claimed content over a Facebook post that supposed mistreatment of asylum seekers at an Immigration detention centre. The Classes Court then granted a discharge amounting not to acquittal following the Court found that her charge has been defective.