AT THE COURTS: 10 months' jail for Sim Lim Square seller of illegal streaming devices

Singaporean’s two shops fined 200,000 and 100,000 under the Copyright Act

- Nadine Chua

A man who sold illegal streaming devices at Sim Lim Square was sentenced to 10 months' jail in the first such prosecution of its kind.

On Oct 24, Ge Xin, 37, admitted to infringing the copyright of works owned by organisations including Disney, Netflix, Paramount Pictures and the Football Association Premier League.

Top Gun: Maverick, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore and an English Premier League (EPL) match between Liverpool and Manchester City were among the content available on the illegal streaming devices.

Ge Xin, a Singaporean, sold the devices that could allow users to unlawfully gain access to such copyrighted works. His two shops at Sim Lim Square, MT Gadget+ and Grandnew, were fined $200,000 and $100,000 respectively under the Copyright Act.

The conviction of Ge Xin and his companies were the first such prosecutions under Section 150 of the Copyright Act, which targets copyright infringement by commercial dealers of illegal streaming devices, the Premier League said in a statement.

This comes after simultaneous raids on retail shops in Sim Lim Square in October 2022 by officers from the Criminal Investigation Department.