Digest on Malaysian News

Raja Petra and editors to pay RM7mil for libel

ALOR STAR: A High Court here has ordered blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin, the group chief editor and editor of PKR’s organ Suara Keadilan to pay a total of RM7mil to Universiti Utara Malaysia and its vice-chancellor Tan Sri Dr Nordin Kardi for libel.

High Court deputy registrar Priscilla Gengadaran made the order yesterday following a judgment in default she handed down on Feb 26 after the three had failed to file their defence within the required period.

She ordered the damages to be paid to the plaintiffs for claiming that Dr Nordin was a plagiarist on the Malaysia Today website and in the 98th edition of Suara Keadilan in November 2006.

Nordin and UUM had filed a lawsuit against Raja Petra, PKR, Suara Keadilan group chief editor and the editor. Only PKR had submitted its defence.

Priscilla ordered Raja Petra to pay RM2mil to Dr Nordin and UUM respectively. She also ordered each of the editors to pay RM1mil and RM500,000 to Dr Nordin and UUM respectively.

Dr Nordin told a press conference yesterday that the judgment showed that there was room for the public to take action against bloggers who made slanderous remarks.

“Politicians and artistes who are the usual targets should take action to ensure bloggers do not make libellous statements,” he said.

Dr Nordin said that if the defendants paid up, he would use the money for the benefit of UUM.

Source: http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/3/27/courts/20763017&sec=courts (Mar 27, 2008)


MD Says:

RM7 million is a hefty fine. Hopefully Raja Petra Kamaruddin (RPK) can sort things out and continue with his scorching posts at Malaysia Today. RPK claims of Dr Nordin Kardi being a copy cat could be true but with insufficient evidences or he may have soft evidences with the court does not accept or recognize.

Below is the definition "plagiarism":

Plagiarism is the practice of claiming or implying original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgement. Unlike cases of forgery, in which the authenticity of the writing, document, or some other kind of object itself is in question, plagiarism is concerned with the issue of false attribution.

Within academia, plagiarism by students, professors, or researchers is considered academic dishonesty or academic fraud and offenders are subject to academic censure. In journalism, plagiarism is considered a breach of journalistic ethics, and reporters caught plagiarizing typically face disciplinary measures ranging from suspension to termination. Some individuals caught plagiarizing in academic or journalistic contexts claim that they plagiarized unintentionally, by failing to include quotations or give the appropriate citation. While plagiarism in scholarship and journalism has a centuries-old history, the development of the Internet, where articles appear as electronic text, has made the physical act of copying the work of others much easier, simply by copying and pasting text from one web page to another.

Plagiarism is different from copyright infringement. While both terms may apply to a particular act, they emphasize different aspects of the transgression. Copyright infringement is a violation of the rights of the copyright holder, when material is used without the copyright holder's consent. On the other hand, plagiarism is concerned with the unearned increment to the plagiarizing author's reputation that is achieved through false claims of authorship.