Malaysian Torrent Downloader, Beware...

RM250k fine for illegal downloads...

KUALA LUMPUR: If you download material illegally from the Internet, be prepared to fork out a minimum fine of RM250,000.

This is the warning from the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry to Malaysians who continue to illegally download songs, videos and the like.

Although this penalty was legislated more than 10 years ago under the Copyright Act 1987, it has yet to be fully enforced.

This was because the Government was still focusing on “physical enforcement”, encompassing continuous efforts to weed out pirated DVDs, VCDs and CDs sold on the streets and their operators.

Deputy Minister Datuk S. Veerasingam said that while this remains their main priority, cracking down on Internet download offenders was also gaining momentum.

“For the past three years, we have seen a significant reduction in copyright pirates.

“This is due to the continuous efforts of four enforcement officers. “We will also very soon make Internet download offenders our priority. The law has been there for the past 10 years,” he said Tuesday.

Veerasingam was speaking to reporters after opening the WIPO Asia-Pacific Regional Seminar on the Issues and Recent Developments of the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty on behalf of Minister Datuk Shafie Apdal.

More than 75 participants from 11 countries are taking part in the three-day seminar.

Veerasingam added that the maximum fine for downloading material illegally from the Internet was as high as a whopping RM500,000.

The reality of it, Veerasingam said, was that as long as there were buyers, there would always be sellers.

“It doesn't matter whether it's buying a CD from the street or illegally downloading songs from the Internet. It's still the same,” he said.

He thus urged Malaysians to be responsible consumers and realise the damage they caused to the various industries that painstakingly produced music, videos and movies only to find their work being used for free.

On the other hand, he also urged that products be reasonably priced so consumers would not consider cheaper alternatives, such as pirated or illegally downloaded products.

On advancements made by the country in this area, Veerasingam said various amendments to the law and the instalment of an Intellectual Property Court recently was testament to this.

---This might be the beginning of something big. So to Malaysians, be careful of what you are downloading. I suggest you to use peerguardian with your torrent client. I am suggesting this to anyone who used torrent client that do not have built in peer ban list such as utorrent and azureus, e.g Deluge. Anyway, just be careful. Lest you will be like those punished in the U.S.---