4/07/2008
Rule of Law
Streetdirectory.com(Virtual Map) sued several users of its map in the past for huge sums of money for using its maps without authorisation. It was a great example of how rule of law are applied effectively in this country.
Lately, Streetdirectory.com was sued by SLA for copyright violation, for using SLA maps without consent. It thus did not have the right of the maps which it claimed to have to sue those violators successfully. It has now decided that it would not refund the parties for unauthorised use of its maps.
'If there's anything we can do to lessen the pain of those who hate the company, please inform them to contact us. But we will not refund any money as the monies have gone back into building better products and services and running of the site.' Virtual Map MD Firdhaus Akber
This is a strange declaration. Can Virtual Map still keep the money if they were awarded to them wrongfully? It is as good as money wrongly credited into someone's account and the recipient spent it and refused to return.
Can those who were victims of Virtual Map claim back their money, legally, under the rule of law?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
17 comments:
Please do not open up a can of worms!
Warning: The can inside may contain venomous snakes instead!
> Can those who were victims of Virtual Map claim back their money, legally, under the rule of law? <
They should consider themselves lucky that they wouldn't be sued by LTA — the supposedly rightful intellectual property owner of the maps.
If I were a "victim" of the VM lawsuit, I would be seeking protection from SLA lawsuit, and not make a fuss about my "loss" with VM.
Be smart! Don't seek to kick VM—it wasn't their fault you got sued. At the end of the day it is the COURT that awarded judgment in VM's favour.
IMO SLA has a "big cock" as far as legal clout goes. Avoid SLA as best you can!
Correction:
I meant "SLA" instead of "LTA" in my first paragraph
how could sla sue victims when the victims lifted from vm? it was between victims and vm. sla's rightful claim is against vm. vm's rightful claim is against people who stole from them.
can go all the way back to sla meh?
as for anonymous, like to share the can of worms? what kind of snakes are there?
> can go all the way back to sla meh? <
It can and it SHOULD. Because they are the RIGHTFUL OWNERS of the property.
VM is obliged to handover the "damages" it won against those vm sued for copyright violation.
Put it this way: A robber A steals your stuff. Another robber B steals your stuff from A. Robber B is in possession of stuff he does not own legally, and robber A is guilty of robbing you directly. What doesn't change is the fact that you own your stuff.
There are thousands of injustices committed each day either on a social level or in the market place. Truth is, there is no way our judiciary system can cope with all the grievances and neither are they equipped to do so. So they put up costly and cumbersome obstacles to deter the onslaught of people seeking justice.At the end of the day, we are just scraping the surface of all the bad blood out there. Our judiciary system looks good at the macro level - if you have the patience, the time and can afford justice that is. But on a micro level, many already feels exhausted just looking at the lofty elitist's judiciary system to even think justice is possible.
With grievances unresolved, it poison the blood stream of society . It is a time bomb waiting to explode on someone, some place etc!
there is a recent case in the stock market when a customer pledged his shares to a financial institution. that institution pledged the same shares to a bank. now the institution went bust. bank seized the shares.
the original owner now has no recourse to his shares. this happens in australia. the original owner is a singaporean residing here.
it's a dark institution. comfortably dressed in complex truths that even bewildered their kind. if not for filthy lucre gain, many would have stayed away from the parade of pharisees. it's no longer cool to associate with haughty prestige with a political bend.
you want worms? you need to get a team of experts into every mediation centers and probe!
i am confident if you start interviewing victims, you will be shocked with the number of unresolved cases!
and that's only the tip of the iceberg!
and oh yes, when i say 'experts', i am talking about truly independent experts not appointed or approved by our 'experts'!
redbean:
Yes, that happens in Oz. And it is quite legal, even if it looks "unfair" to the onlooker. The bank is perfectly within its rights to keep the shares, as it is their private property, received in a voluntary arrangement with another party (the now busted financial institution).
This is not the same as my "robber" example or the case of SLA vs Virtual Maps. In these cases the property was obtained ILLEGALLY.
Another one happening with greater frequency now as interest rates are rising in Aust (also happens in S'pore):
Buyer has mortgage over his tenanted rental property. Buyer defaults on the mortgage, bank forecloses and seizes property. Tenant is kicked out, sometimes even barred from entering property to clear his stuff, as all goods on the premises are now deemed "property" of the bank. To clear his stuff he has to "prove" that he owns whichever goods he says he owns.
Caveat emptor. Lots of scams out there.
anon 1203
Yes, not all cases can be solved in a (relatively) free society. That is because the presumption of innocence prevails until enough irrefutable objective evidence is available to prove guilt or culpability.
"Intellectual property" is a new idea to most S'poren firms because S'poreans in the past (it's changed) have no problem pirating software, music, games, movies books etc. They don't even BLINK.
And firms had no problem in using (at the time) "hot" Sin Lim software to run their business — no one gave a shot about someone else's property, and there was theft everywhere.
So those firms who violated copyright just suka-suka used the maps without ever giving a fuck. Well, it serves them right for being sued. As a (sometimes) content creator myself, I have no sympathy for anyone caught violating IP rights.
matilah,
in this vm case, vm is an info provider and charges its clients for using the map. clients that did so without permission or paying, will be violating the agreement and can be sued.
in the case of sla, it is not in this business and allows people to use their maps freely. so there is no violation against sla's copyright.
clients who were made to pay vm can rightly claim back the money and nothing to do with sla. no theft from sla.
If that is the case, the bad judgment and the present mess is caused by the COURTS. what the fuck are those high priced judges and magistrates doing?
don't anyhow point your fingers at the judges. they judged based on the facts available. if no one pointed to the judges that vm had no right to the intellectual property, how would the judge know?
sure can. i waiting for you to do that. just let me know and i will bring my camera and post it here.
Action speaks louder than words. Do it!
Referring to anon 1203:
Some craven motherfucker (in the literal sense) going by the non-name of "anonymous" is trying to challenge me by egging me with what to do with my genitals (in the figurative sense).
Whahahahahaha....
Post a Comment