Digital Laws of Singapore

Okay, there's something I'd like to ask when it comes to someone who... were about to move to Singapore.

He's carrying a laptop which contains files. Amongst the files includes... several music videos he downloaded from youtube, several musics he downloaded elsewhere in the net, several video game emulators... but only ones already pulled from the shelves like NES, Sega Genesis, Neo Geo, Arcade, etc.

If he moved to Singapore with these in his laptop, will the law find him guilty, even if he's not downloading anything else? Should he delete all those before he departed?

Thanks for the answers.

edited 16th Aug '14 4:31:12 AM by ChrisX

First up, I am not well read on the law so take it with a heap of salt.

I do not believe the authorities would bother that much about stuff like that. (Or they say they will but it's pretty hard to check on everyone so it's just being said at most)

And he could always just download everything again. It's nothing super illegal anyway.

Reminds me of what Odex did when they got court orders for torrent row loaders to pay up.

I don't think the airport security checks such laptop information. I know because I'm Singaporean and when I went overseas and came back to Singapore, they did not check my laptop information.

They don't regularly check houses for that? Because I heard there's also some who regularly checks houses and see if there's even a mosquito corpse, and would fine you for that if they ever find out...

Just got here a couple of weeks ago, and I've gotten to know a lot of people who did just that without getting into trouble.

(Bit of a heads-up: we don't really discuss copyright infringement in the fora. You might need to consult a mod on how much is considered okay)

Well, they did open the thread for posting, but I'm going to talk about this in general terms just to be safe. And for what it's worth, a disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and haven't touched this issue for a long, long time, so I'm obviously going to be a little rusty and probably inaccurate in most areas. And I don't speak legalese.

Now that that's out of the way... There are two parts to your question: legality and enforceability.

For the exact legislation on copyright laws, you can check the IPOS website for the appropriate links to the penal code, but the debate about the legality of downloading of music, videos and emulation isn't exclusive to Singapore, and you can probably assume it's illegal unless stated otherwise in the terms of service of the provider or copyright owner.

As for enforcing said rules... It's not feasible for the law to go after every single person who downloads something illegally, since you can find articles which suggest that more than half the adult population of Singapore has pirated something at some point. Legally-mandated checks of personal computers and other digital storage devices are not routine - there has to actually be a civil or criminal case against the subject. Refer here, and you might want to look up the part on the Anton Piller order, but the general idea is that there has to be a really strong case against you before the authorities have to resort to searching your stuff, so it's invoked more often against larger-scale copyright violations. (Not that it isn't open to abuse, of course.) As for airport searches, remember that airport security is looking for security and safety risks and customs violations. Inspection of laptops is not routine either, as far as I recall.

Incidentally, the Odex incident was a pain in the ass notable for having gone through a lot of legal wrangling before the ISP provider was required to give up end-user information - and to the owners of the actual work and not Odex, which was a sublicensee and therefore not authorised to act on their behalf. (Which, one should note, highlights the difficulties in enforcing laws against online piracy and balancing them against customer privacy and confidentiality.) A more recent ruling last month allows copyright holders to apply for a court injunction to block sites involved in "flagrant" (to be decided on a case-by-case basis) copyright infringement without going through the ISP.

So basically, it's illegal and it's incredibly commonplace, so if your friend's activities are so suspicious that the authorities actually need to invoke the right to search his things, he probably has bigger problems to worry about. In summary:

(Now, the stuff about house searches for dengue is... technically related, but not quite a direct comparison. The provision for inspections for dengue is covered under Part IV of the Control of Vectors and Pesticides Act, but the long and short of it is that you're given a 12-hour notice to clean up your place or face a fine. They're not there to seize evidence on suspicion of criminal activity; it's an inspection to ensure that your place is adhering to health and safety regulations.)

edited 17th Aug '14 6:06:34 AM by Pyrite

Well, the thing is, that friend of mine did not want to download things in Singapore. In his home country, however, people was just free to download things, just as long as they don't use it for sale. This includes the likes of downloading subtitled movies, anime, etc. He's just trying to bring it to Singapore for personal use. Now the thing is, if he knew that even bringing it to Singapore is illegal, he'll just leave it at home country and then get to Singapore without them, he can come home any time and do the downloading there, just not Singapore.

He doesn't plan to do anything suspicious there, he just wondered if he could bring those stuffs to Singapore. Like for instance, downloaded musics. If it's illegal to be brought in Singapore, he'll not store the music in his laptop that he brings to Singapore.

When you say that people are free to download things for personal use, do you mean that there's an actual clause in your friend's country's legal code that says that you may download those works without possessing an original copy (or the converse: that there's no clause in the law that says that you can't), or is it actually more a case of, "everybody does it anyway and nobody cares"? Big difference.

People have been fined for trying to bring pirated media into Singapore and have had said media confiscated, but I don't know if that extends to downloaded materials on a laptop because I don't know if anyone's ever checked.

I don't think I'm in a position to offer accurate legal advice. I don't want to be misconstrued as abetting something which will probably turn out to be illegal or in a legal grey area, but we don't want you to get the wrong impression about local monitoring policies. If your friend is concerned about works of questionable legality as a matter of principle, he should discuss the issue with a good lawyer, or just play it safe.

edited 17th Aug '14 6:37:49 AM by Pyrite

As a Singaporean who flies back and forth between Australia and Singapore, I can safely say that they never, ever check what's on your computer.

Seriously, I've never ever seen them do it. Unless you walk right up to, say, a police officer and tell him that you have a computer full of illegal material, nobody's going to find out.

Unless your friend acts like he's carrying a bomb or drugs, or otherwise gives them some reason to investigate him, no-one's going to give him a second glance.

Well that answers the digital terms of Singaporean laws. Thank you very much. There's still some things he'd ask, but it leers less about digital stuffs, so I ought to make a new topic about it. Again, thank you very much.