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TRS editors face new lawsuit alleging copyright infringement

SINGAPORE – The Real Singapore (TRS) editor Yang Kaiheng, who was allowed to leave the country earlier to visit his ailing father, attended a pre-trial conference (PTC) at the State Courts this morning (May 18).

Yang Kaiheng and Ai Takagi, editors of The Real Singapore, leaving the State Court May 4, 2015. TODAY file photo

Yang Kaiheng and Ai Takagi, editors of The Real Singapore, leaving the State Court May 4, 2015. TODAY file photo

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SINGAPORE — The legal battles that The Real Singapore (TRS) editors Yang Kaiheng and Ai Takagi have to face just got bigger.

Besides the criminal charges they are facing, the pair must now answer to a civil lawsuit alleging copyright infringement — at least 191 counts of copyright infringements for which the plaintiff Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) is seeking to claim for loss and damages.

In its legal summons, which TODAY has seen, SPH identified articles from four newspapers — The Straits Times, My Paper, The New Paper and the Business Times — that it says the TRS editors had reproduced or authorised such reproduction without permission.

Yang and Takagi were headed to the State Courts today (May 18) for a closed-door conference on the sedition charges they face when the summons from SPH were served to them. Reporters saw the couple decline the legal papers and brush off the attempt.

They have eight days to respond. When contacted tonight, Yang’s lawyer Choo Zheng Xi told TODAY he had obtained a copy, although his clients had not seen the 49-page document yet, which did not specify the amount claimed.

In it, SPH claims that the company had, on multiple occasions, notified TRS of copyright infringements. The various articles cited in its claim were published on the TRS website from January 2011 to April this year.

“The Defendants offered the sale of advertising space on the TRS Website and received financial benefit directly attributable to the infringement of the copyright in the SPH Articles that occurred in, or in the course of, making available the electronic copy of the SPH Articles on the TRS Website,” stated SPH, which is seeking to claim additional damages.

“The Defendants used the SPH Content as content on the TRS Website so as to draw traffic to and build readership for the TRS Website, without the Defendants having to expend financial resources on the creation of independent news content or the payment of licence fees to the Plaintiff (SPH) for the reproduction of the SPH Content.”

Earlier today, Mr Choo told reporters after Yang’s pre-trial conference that his team will make written representations by June 8 to review the charges against his client. 

These representations are made for the purpose of appealing to the Attorney-General’s Chambers to withdraw or reduce the nature and number of charges faced by an accused.

Yang and Takagi stand accused of seven charges of allegedly publishing seditious articles on the TRS website between October 2013 and February this year. They are also charged with failing to produce documents to a police officer from the Criminal Investigation Department.

Earlier this month, the Media Development Authority (MDA) had separately ordered TRS to stop posting articles and to disable access to its website and social media accounts. The MDA also suspended the statutory class licence for the website. 

Mr Choo told reporters that the team had last week made “the necessary communication” to the MDA with regard to the licence suspension, but had not received a response.

When contacted by the media, an MDA spokesperson said: “MDA has received the representations and is currently reviewing it.”

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