Transplanting the United States' style of safe harbour provisions on internet service providers via multilateral agreements: can one size fit all?

Ideally, internet service providers (ISP) should not be burdened with policing contents that pass through their services as they have no editorial control over them. The United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 (DMCA) changes the ball game by making it mandatory on ISPs to take down infringing copyright materials if they received a notice and takedown request from a copyright holder. In exchange, the ISPs enjoy safe harbour from any liabilities that might arise from their user's action. Serious efforts are needed to transpose a similar system via negotiations and multilateral treaties and agreements involving a number of countries such as through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement. Despite the withdrawal of the United States’ (US) from the TPP, and in view of the global initiatives of harmonization of intellectual property (IP) laws, this article aims to explore the different system of ISPs’ obligations and liabilities in the twelve TPP member countries. It also examines some of the strengths and weaknesses of each system. It concludes with an argument that whilst some form of safe harbour should be created to assist IP right owners in policing their right, the US private notice and takedown system is not without its flaws and hence, other existing systems which are adopted in some of the TPP member countries are equally feasible and serve a common purpose in tackling the issue of copyright infringement vis-à-vis ISP liability. Eventually, there is no compelling reason to impose one single system on all the TPP member countries to police the internet via ISP liability

Investigating translation strategies in Indonesian best seller novel

Translation strategies have been the subject of extensive investigation. Most people believe that translators use specific strategies and that basic translation strategies are sometimes insufficient. As a result, numerous scholars have investigated and analyzed various translation techniques from various perspectives. This study determined the translation strategies in the novel of Negeri 5 Menara and its English Version, The Land of Five Towers using Baker's (2011) framework. This study was conducted using a descriptive qualitative technique to determine the translation strategies in Negeri 5 Menara and its English version, The Land of Five Towers. There were 130 data points in all. According to the findings, 11% about the use of the more general word, 14 % in the use of the more neutral or expensive word, 8% of cultural substitution, 5% of loan words, 4% of omission, paraphrase with related terms accounted for 57% of all translation tactics, while paraphrasing with unrelated words accounted for 2%, and there was no data on illustration. There were 21 uncategorized data points for every given strategy. It was predicted that in the future, a translator, who is also a pre-service teacher, should widen his or her translation methodologies in order to combat non-equivalence translation

Guaranteeing safer consumption of nutraceutical products in Malaysia: must it always be on the government?

Nutraceutical products have become widespread phenomenon for proclaimed benefits they seem to offer. To define what nutraceutical is has always been confusing in certain jurisdictions especially Malaysia. Legally, they cannot be considered as mere food, and they are not pharmaceutical drugs either. Due to uncertainty in its categorisation, manufacturing and product delivery processes have become easier for nutraceutical manufacturers. They have made numerous health claims that were not based on clinical evidence and there is no legal requirement for such. Although some consumers have benefited from the products, established research suggested that consumers could risks their health through long-term consumption. Hence, this paper intends to discover regulatory issues and challenges encountered by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Authority (NPRA) and the Food Safety and Quality Division (FSQD) under the Ministry of Health Malaysia in regulating nutraceutical products – from production to marketing processes to ensure safer consumption. Focus group discussions have been conducted with officers from NPRA and FSQD, which led to the following results. This paper finds two intriguing discovery namely: - (1) there is an ineffective self-regulatory framework governing nutraceutical industry in Malaysia as both agencies aforementioned have no effective control particularly in key areas such as enforcement, product labelling, and advertising. Secondly, the paper also finds lack of awareness and knowledge on safe production amongst nutraceutical manufacturers – which could be reflected on the products they produce and may threatens consumers in the longer run. It seems that in the Malaysian atmosphere, governmental intervention may be highly required to guarantee safer consumption of nutraceutical products – so that consumers may truly benefit from them. Self-regulation as practiced may have made the nutraceutical industry too complacent hence have placed consumers’ safety at stake

Rainfall network optimization in Johor

This paper presents a method for establishing an optimal network design of rain gauge station for the estimation of areal rainfall in Johor. The main problem in this study is minimizing an objective function to determine the optimal number and location for the rain gauge stations. The well-known geostatistics method (variance-reduction method) is used in combination with simulated annealing as an algorithm of optimization. Rainfall data during monsoon season (November – February) for 1975 – 2008 from existing 84 rain gauge stations covering all Johor were used in this study. Result shows that the combination of geostatistics method with simulated annealing successfully managed to determine the optimal number and location of rain gauge station

Comparison of semivariogram models in rain gauge network design

The well-known geostatistics method (variance-reduction method) is com- monly used to determine the optimal rain gauge network. The main problem in geostatis- tics method to determine the best semivariogram model in order to be used in estimating the variance. An optimal choice of the semivariogram model is an important point for a good data evaluation process. Three different semivariogram models which are Spherical, Gaussian and Exponential are used and their performances are compared in this study. Cross validation technique is applied to compute the errors of the semivariograms. Rain- fall data for the period of 1975 – 2008 from the existing 84 rain gauge stations covering the state of Johor are used in this study. The result shows that the exponential model is the best semivariogram model and chosen to determine the optimal number and location of rain gauge station

‘Unsafe’ nutraceuticals products on the Internet: The need for stricter regulation in Malaysia

Nutraceutical products are functional foods consumed by many for its proclaimed benefits to health. Most nutraceutical products are not pharmaceutical drugs, hence has been treated as food. This made nutraceutical regulation more difficult since they do not fall under the jurisdiction of pharmaceutical regulatory authorities. Accordingly, Control of Drugs and Cosmetics Regulation 1984 and related legislations do not bind nutraceutical producers. This puts them away from direct monitoring and supervision from the Drug Control Authority (DCA). It is feared that lack of monitoring, unsupervised and unregulated production of nutraceutical products in a long run and for a long use could harm consumers. To add to the problem, nutraceutical products have been easily marketed through social media. Online sellers made ‘attractive’ claims that these products could cure even the most serious diseases. This paper examines the definitions of nutraceutical products and its regulatory frameworks in popular jurisdictions. It then proceeds to highlight the problem in lack of regulatory controls over nutraceutical products, which causes harms to consumers. This is worsened when social media has been effectively used to market these products – where some online sellers went up to the extent of making false claims to attract customers’ attention. The paper concludes with the finding that Food Act 1983 needs to address purchases of nutraceutical products through online channels. In particular, when a product was found to make false claims, the Food Act 1983 must also be empowered to have notice and takedown procedures – so that online customers will not be deceived by such claims

Regulatory control of herbal and traditional medicines in Malaysia: issues and concerns

Many herbs are believed to be beneficial in curing diseases, in addition to improving general health and wellbeing. With the booming of many herbal and traditional medicines into local markets, it is feared that the harmful side effects might prevail over their potential benefits as there is a lack of or even no scientific basis for the belief. The popularity of these medicines in the modern age is proliferated by the rapid growth of the internet usage worldwide vis-à-vis aggressive online marketing by the manufacturers, producers, retailers and sellers. These categories of medicines generally fall under the purview of various regulations such as the Control of Drugs and Cosmetics Regulations 1984, Sale of Drug Act 1952, Poison Act 1952, and the Advertisement and Sale Act 1956. Despite these regulations, production and sale of traditional medicines might pose some issues in relation to their safety to the consumers as they contain some new active ingredient of plant extracts which are chemicals that have the potential of causing adverse implication to health, similar to those purified medications. Generally, registration requirements for food supplements are not as stringent as those made applicable for pharmaceutical products and hence, many herbal and traditional medicines are registered under the former rather than the latter categories. Setting on this background, this paper seeks to examine the current legal framework regulating herbal and traditional medicines in Malaysia, with a special emphasis on the issues and challenges revolving around them. This paper uses qualitative research method, that is a content analysis of the existing literature from journals, articles, periodicals and various websites. Doctrinal analysis is applied to examine the relevant laws in selected jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom, European Union, Australia and Japan, with the aim of emulating the most suitable, best practice from these countries. This paper concludes with some suggestions such as imposing the requirement of clinical evidence and adopting a systematic post-marketing surveillance to overcome the problems and weaknesses of the current legal mechanism in regulating products of herbal and traditional medicines

Enhancing regulation of nutraceutical products in Malaysia lessons from Japan

The phenomenal commercial success of many nutraceutical products, dietary and health supplements indicate increasing levels of consumer acceptance to the usage of health supplements in Malaysia. As much as these products are consumed for health purposes, lack of effective control by drug authority leaves much to be desired. Legal issues such as marketing approval, product liability, safety, advertising, trade description (nutrition labelling & health claims) would undoubtedly emerge as direct implications from widespread sales and consumption of such products. Consumers' health and safety are at risk where nutraceuticals can easily penetrate into the market without any need of undergoing clinical studies, as opposed to pharmaceuticals. This article was written based on research that has identified several causal factors to the above-mentioned issues. First, nutraceuticals are loosely classified as in between food and drugs. Due to the loose classification scheme, manufacturers tend to opt that their products be classified as food to escape strict clinical evaluations. This leads to the issue of misleading health claims made on its labels and advertisements. The article examines the regulation of nutraceuticals in Malaysia and identifies significant issues therein. Comparative analysis with Japanese nutraceutical regulations was made to learn how Japanese classifies its nutraceuticals under specific categories known as ‘Food for Specified Health Uses (FOSHU)’. Products bearing the FOSHU logo went through strict clinical tests and are allowed to make health claims on their labels – and were proven effective and safe for consumption as claimed. The article made several recommendations for the establishment of a legal framework to regulate nutraceutical products in Malaysia

The Malaysian creative content industry: how do we fare vis a vis United States and South Korea?

The Malaysian creative content industry is a young industry, having its origins as early as in the 1930s. It proves its potential where many emerging local talents are being recognized and accepted by the international audience. Unfortunately, it is not at par with other rapidly evolving content industries like the Korean hallyu culture or the United States’ Hollywood industry. Several factors have been cited for this, namely the conflicting interest between the original creators and the corporate or private investors in Malaysia especially with regards to residual payments which rarely exists in Malaysia. Poor quality scripts and constraints in terms of production performance due to the limitation of funding and budgets are among other identified factors. It is claimed that private investors tend to manipulate the business model to gain higher profit margin and this deprives the rights of the original creators. This is the core issue that the paper will explore by employing a qualitative method i.e. doctrinal analysis and semi structured interviews by studying existing model framework on content industry developed in the United States and South Korea in order to propose recommendations to improve the content creator's rights in Malaysia. Preliminary result of the study showed that in Malaysia, content creators could not survive only on the earnings from acting to sustain their life without resorting to other part time jobs, unlike the Hollywood industry. The paper will contribute in further enhancing the Malaysian creative content industry as it is one of the Entry Point Project in the Malaysian Economic Transformation Program

Guidelines and legal ecosystem for the creation of Islamic content in Malaysia: towards consumer empowerment = Garis panduan dan ekosistem undang-undang bagi penciptaan kandungan kreatif Islam di Malaysia: mendepani pemberdayaan pengguna

The contents of creative industry must portray the cultural and religious values of the country. As a tool of nation building, creative industry plays a fundamental role in inculcating good values and the avoidance of social illnesses. The objective of this study is to examine the importance and growth of Islamic contents in Malaysian creative industry. By employing qualitative research methods, namely, content analysis and interviews, the study found that there is increase in the demand for Islamic contents. This study intends to highlight some of the concerns raised by both producers and consumers of creative content with the hope of empowering consumers in choosing content that is more suitable to their cultural and religious needs. For the Islamic content industry to flourish, having a supportive legal eco-system is imperative. This study explores the existing guidelines on Islamic content as a well as relevant legislation that governs content creation in Malaysia. The study concludes with some policy recommendations that would assist in harnessing the creation of Islamic content in Malaysia. Kandungan yang dipertontonkan melalui industri kreatif sesebuah negara mesti menggambarkan nilai budaya dan agama negara tersebut. Sebagai salah satu alat bagi pembentukan bangsa, industri kreatif memainkan peranan penting dalam menanam nilai-nilai murni dan mengelakkan gejala-gejala sosial. Objektif kajian ini adalah untuk mengkaji kepentingan dan perkembangan kandungan yang berunsur Islamik di dalam industri kreatif Malaysia. Dengan menggunakan kaedah penyelidikan kualitatif, iaitu analisis kandungan dan wawancara, kajian mendapati terdapat peningkatan terhadap permintaan untuk kandungan-kandungan Islamik. Kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengetengahkan beberapa isu yang dikemukakan oleh keduadua pembikin dan pengguna kandungan-kandungan kreatif dengan harapan untuk memperkasakan pengguna dalam memilih kandungan yang lebih bersesuaian dengan keperluan budaya dan agama mereka