CIPIL Seminar: 'Internet Intermediaries and Copyright Infringement – Who makes the copy?'

Speaker

Susanna HS Leong, Professor of Law, NUS Business School, National University of Singapore

Abstract

Since its inception, the internet has had a profound impact on society. Advancements in informational technology and ensuing activities on the internet have given rise to the issue of “intermediaries and their legal liabilities”. There is a lack of consensus about what is the right terminology to use in the discussions of this issue. For the purposes of this talk and in our discussion of copyright liability in the internet, we employ the term “internet intermediaries” which is wide enough to include internet service providers; data processing and web hosting providers; internet search engines; e-commerce platforms; participative networking platforms and e-payment systems.

The objective of this talk is to provide a broad overview of various possible scenarios in which copyright infringements may take place in the internet and the roles “internet intermediaries” play in bringing about the alleged infringing acts. This sets the background against which we examine, through a comparative analysis of court decisions across different jurisdictions, the challenges of allocating legal responsibility between different players in a spatial dimension where their roles as content producer, intermediary and consumer are not necessarily always clear and distinct.

About the speaker

Susanna HS Leong is a Professor of Law at the NUS Business School, National University of Singapore and is an Advocate & Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore. Susanna received her LL.B (Hons) from National University of Singapore and her LL.M (with Merit) from University College London, University of London. She teaches business related law courses such as contract, sale of goods and intellectual property to undergraduate and graduate business students in English and Chinese. Her research interests are in intellectual property and technology-related laws. She has published in several international and local academic journals. She is also the author of “Intellectual Property Law of Singapore”, Academy Publishing, Singapore.

Susanna was the Vice-Dean, Graduate Studies, NUS Business School (January 2008 to December 2016). She is a Senior Fellow at the Intellectual Property Academy of Singapore. She is a member of WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre’s Domain Name Panel, a member of The Regional Centre for Arbitration, Kuala Lumpur (RCAKL) Panel and a member of Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre (Hong Kong). She is also a member of the Singapore Copyright Tribunal.