Heavy fine for Malaysian ISD seller
August 4, 2023
By Colin Mann
The Ampang Session Court in Kuala Lumpur has charged and fined a salesperson, Leong Wei Xiang, RM20,000 (€4,000) for selling TV boxes pre-loaded with unauthorised Astro content under Section 43AA (2) of the Copyright Act 1987. He pleaded guilty to the charges and paid the fine.
Leong committed the offence on October 21st, 2022, at an outlet at Dataran Pandan Prima, Selangor. He was found in possession of four Android TV Boxes preloaded with unauthorised content.
During 2023, Astro has filed five legal actions against piracy and copyright infringement where a total of 10 individuals were found guilty and fined accordingly.
The Copyright (Amendment) Act 2022 was gazetted on February 10th, 2022. Enforcement of the law was implemented by the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry (KPDNHEP) on March 18th, 2022.
The key impact of the amendment is the criminalisation of the sale of illicit streaming devices (ISDs) and associated software applications that allow unauthorised access to copyright content. Anyone found guilty can be fined a minimum of RM10,000 to a maximum of RM200,000 or be imprisoned up to 20 years, or both.
The amendments to the Copyright Act followed the declaration by the Intellectual Property High Court in Kuala Lumpur in May 2021 that the sale, offer for sale, distribution and/or supply of ISDs that can provide unauthorised access to copyrighted works, constitutes copyright infringement under the Copyright Act 1987.