Windows XP users pls always "Allow Blocked Content" whenever you see a pop up window restricting active content when this page is loaded because if not you won't see the navigation menu and many other stuff that aren't really dangerous nor may cause a meltdown to your computer's security. Well, not by my website anyway.

Heard of Gmail? It is by invitation only and I have plenty to give. If you want a gmail email account, simply email me at funnlim AT gmail.com (replace AT with @ and no space) together with your valid email address and I'll send you the invitation. Remember, must be valid email address because the details on how to set up an account is in that email sent to that very address.

July 11, 2006

Was it a prank or was it really TVB playing the prank? 
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I am not sure if you remember this post of mine about the legal demand letter by TVB to TVBsquare.com (TVBSquare has since deleted that topic so I guess they must have received a similar reply). Well I actually did the following, I wrote to TVB themselves as follows:-

From: A TVB Fan [mailto:atvbfan@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 8:44 PM
To: TVBPR
Subject: Demand letters from HKTVB's legal dept

Dear Sirs,

I am a frequent visitors of many non TVB affiliated fansites for many years and it has been quite depressing to know that there has been several demand letters (legal demands) sent to several well known fansites such as www.tvbsquare.com and some other blogs with letters such as the following:-

"Your site contains the following videos copyrighted by TVB, please remove them right away. Legal action would be committed if not once removed within two days.

Internet Department,

Jared Ting"

or a more authentic looking letter,


"We, Television Broadcasts Limited, are the copyright owner of various television programme produced by us and of the contents contained in our official website http://www.tvb.com..We are also the owner of trademark registration "TVB" in various service classes worldwide.

It has come to our notice that you are distributing and posting our copyrighted materials including artistes photographs, posters and advertising materials on your website without our authorization.

Your use of our trademark "TVB" in this way may constitute the tort of passing off and may cause confusion to the public and mislead others to think that the activities undertaken in your website is in some way connected with or endorsed by us or that we have authorized you to use our "TVB" trademark in your website.

The above mentioned activities clearly constitute flagrant infringement of our copyright materials and trademark and have adversely affected prejudicially our rights for which we are entitled to take legal action against you and all infringers involved for all damages and losses suffered by us.

In view of the above, we hereby demand you to immediately (i) delete all contents containing our copyrighted materials, all pictures and references of TVB from your website ; (ii) permanently cease to use, copy, reproduce, distribute or upload any of our copyrighted materials in your website; and (iii) assign to us, at no costs, your domain registration

If you do not deal with this matter in the manner stated above, we will take appropriate action to protect our interests without further notice.

In the meantime, all our rights are reserved.


Yours faithfully,
Jane Ting
Assistant Legal Counsel
Legal Department
Television Broadcasts Limited "

All claiming to be from TVB's legal dept and that if the particular owner does to basically remove all materials relating to TVB and assigning their domain names to TVB, legal proceedings may be brought against these fansites owners.

I do not believe any of them has ever written directly to your goodselves with regards to these matters and I am doubtful of the authencity of these letters since I personally do not see any harm in these websites who have done their lion share in promoting everything TVB at no charge but a deep sense of passion and interest since we all grew up watching TVB series. Certain materials such as pictures and posters can be found even through google and several webmasters have been very depressed over the fact of such legal threats over something that could be found basically everywhere.

I would hope to lend my support to your goodselves, if such attempts have been made to ensure copyright laws have not been infringed. It is indeed wonderful to have such check on certain websites but I do not believe such websites should include non profit fansites run by teenagers and those with a passion for your good company's products and series as well as artistes.Basically these are websites that derive no profit except as a hobby. After all it is free promotion and no one has ever been confused of the identity of your official website and the many fansites out there. It would have been wonderful if certain materials, such as pictures, posters, video clips, screencaps and etc be made available to fans to spread around, so as to promote an upcoming series, events, artistes. I believe it will benefit more for your good company and to promote a good relationship between worldwide international fans and your good company. After all where there are Chinese people, these people do watch your series. More so others who do not know the Cantonese language and yet watch your shows with keen interest.

I hope your goodselves will investigate into these demand letters and to ascertain the legitimacy of such claims. If indeed it is not true, it would be great news for fans who unites through such websites and through the wonderful technology that is the internet. But if it is true, as a fan of your shows who regularly gets updates about your company's productions and artistes and who can't read Chinese, these fansites are beneficial to your company and in no way have their use of your materials or your name in certain materials have ever confused me or even cause me to believe they're associated with your good company. Please do not destroy that wonderful relationship and resort to legal threats over mediums that unite your fans to have a better understanding of your good company. Please do not destroy the trusts that exists and the passion that drives us all. It would be even better if your website could make ready a page where it could list all TVB related websites, with certains conditions being met of course.

Thank you,.

Regards,

A TVB fan from Malaysia

And guess what? I actually got an answer!!

From: TVBPR
To: A TVB Fan
Date: Jul 11, 2006 3:22 PM
Subject: RE: Demand letters from HKTVB's legal dept

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for your email of 22 June 2006.

Kindly note that we have not authorized Mr Jared Ting to issue any email on behalf of the Station and Mr Ting is not our employee. Only the emails coming from TVBLegal with email address tvblegal@tvb.com.hk is valid.

Besides, you would appreciate that all TVB programmes and copyright materials produced by us are very valuable to us and it is of utmost importance for us to properly protect and enforce our copyrights. We hope that you will respect our copyrights and understand our situation.

Thank you for your interest in TVB.

Yours faithfully

External Affairs Division

Television Broadcasts Limited

Honestly I can't remember what was the email of that prankster and since the topic has been deleted by TVBSquare, I will never know. But to all of you who have received similar demand letter from "TVB", I am sure this reply by TVB themselves are pretty reassuring. So I say play on my friends! We respect their copyrights but the letter never said we must stop!

So all TVB fans out there with TVB websites and domain names containing the words TVB, take heed; do not get cheated by pranks. Like I said, very rarely, in fact never have I heard of TVB taking any action against fans for any kind of infringement other than perhaps downloading series and distributing it for profit. That I will agree with TVB that it is illegal. Pictures and a clip or two, no big deal. So I guess I still love TVB then.

I wonder what happened with TVBSquare though? Matter settled?

3 COMMENTS

 tvfansquare writes ...

First of all, I want to thank you, a zillion times, haha, thank you for sending that email to TVB. I am sure their legal department is flooded with complaints recently.

Second, about the Jane Ting vs. Jared Ting. Let's just say, Jared Ting is a fake person for sure. However, the first warning letter I got from TVB is a valid email address.

Finally, really happy to see everyone's support on this issue. TVBsquare is rebuilding, trying to make it more fan focus, and not offending TVB by promoting them.. haha...

12:58 am, July 12, 2006  

 sehseh writes ...

Thanks Funn for clarifying the whole thing with us.

How abt bombarding the prankster email with spams and impotency drug emails. Haha... just kidding.

10:32 am, July 12, 2006  

 Anonymous writes ...

Hey funn thanks for writing that letter for tvb too. I was quite pissed off at first for TVB to send this kind of letters and I even resort to watch Korean dramas . If tvb continue to do this they will lose out lot's of audience from the free publicity they're getting from these websites to mainland and also korean dramas who IMHO have much better script quality !

2:13 pm, July 12, 2006