Colin Charles Agenda

Jurisdiction, Internet law & alvivi

Rais Yatim is at it again:

Speaking to reporters yesterday on the sidelines of an event, Dr Rais said, “We have legal redress under Section 233 and 263 of the Communications and Multimedia Act. But we would rather not use that first until and unless we get the results of what the Singaporean authorities are pursuing first.”

legal redress. i’m beginning to wonder, where does Malaysian jurisdiction fall when it comes to the Internet?

the alvivi blog was hosted on tumblr. last I checked, tumblr was not a malaysian company & has no presence in malaysia (this is quite unlike blogspot & google). tumblr is unlikely in singapore too. do malaysian or singaporean internet laws apply? can the communications & multimedia act 1998 be used just because these two are malaysian?!?

so what is alvin tan & vivian lee guilty of? recording videos of their sexual escapades. what’s wrong with that? content is king, and if they’re producing useful content, so be it. no one forces you to watch, or read, or be nosey, so you really can switch channels.

singapore isn’t jumping on this yet. they’re letting the university (nus) deal with the matter first. how is this the problem of the university? maybe its because at least one of them has a scholarship. universities shouldn’t dictate what students choose to do with their lives.

i’m not alone in thinking this is their business. after all with the billions of pages on the internet, there really isn’t much reason for people to cry afoul.

alvin is an entrepreneur at heart. i’m glad they’ve posted a response (seems vivian doesn’t do much talking).

they are after all collecting email addresses to build a mailing list. i’m old enough to remember jennicam. lifecasting is not a new idea either (iJustine, justin.tv, etc.). imagine jennicam meets kink? there’s great production value here (of course, i have to admit i’ve not seen the content as the blog has been taken offline; but to get such traction, clearly it must be good to a selection of people). alvivi can clearly become a brand. 

obscenity laws? random acts? lets not curtail on the right to freedom of expression. remember, if you don’t like it, don’t view it.