SPH claims copyright infringement from small ecotourism business

Kathy Xu, the founder of The Dorsal Effect, an eco-tourist company shared in her Facebook letters and an email Singapore Press Holdings had sent to her highlighting that her company had shared several of their newspapers’ articles without license. The media giant claimed copyright infringement and said that Ms Xu had to pay an annual fee to continue displaying the articles.

The articles Ms Xu had reproduced in her website were those of interviews she had given to the various SPH newspapers about her eco-tourism business, and the photos used by the newspapers were Ms Xu’s.

The three articles in question can be found here: http://thedorsaleffect.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/New-Paper-article-on-22nd-Sept-2014.pdf; here: http://thedorsaleffect.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/zaobao-article-080414.jpg; and here: http://thedorsaleffect.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/xinmin-ri-bao-feature-010214.jpg.

SPH’s letters to Ms Xu claimed:
In sharing the letters from SPH, Ms Xu said: “Should really reconsider granting interviews to SPH channels again now if they are going to be so money grubbing after I shared openly and honestly about my journey and shared my photos willingly with them for the articles, to end up not being allowed to reshare them on my website. Goodwill broken and faith lost.”

Ms Xu was a school teacher for 7 years before starting her eco-tourism business in 2013. In her website, Ms Xu said:

“After learning about the shark fishing and finning situation and the demand for shark fin soup, Kathy started volunteering on the education arm of Shark Savers Singapore (and still is!) It wasn’t long before she decided that more should be done on the supply side other than the demand side for shark fin soup as well, and soon found herself in Lombok talking to shark fishermen.”

Institutions like the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy do reproduce entire SPH articles (link: http://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/ips/media-room/ips-news-2). It is unclear if they have some special arrangements with the media company.