KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 14 — POS Malaysia’s Stamp Week 2013 kicked off yesterday at Berjaya Times Square. However, the Visit Malaysia Year (VMY) 2014 stamp collection did not make its appearance.
The stamp collection — which featured Malaysian birds, insects and flowers — was earlier scheduled for release in conjunction with Stamp Week 2013. Sources from Pos Malaysia said the collection has been held back and its release date still tentative.
The proposed collection was embroiled in an alleged plagiarism claim put forth by two international photographers, Remy Ocon and Con Foley.
The controversy began after Pos Malaysia’s Stamp and Philately Unit’s Facebook page uploaded promotional posters of the VMY 2014 stamp collection.
An online storm brewed soon after Ocon identified that one of the images used belonged to him and was used without his permission, and was labelled wrongly.
“It seems somebody has stolen one of my photos of a Long-tailed Shrike (Lanius schach), then used it erroneously as a photo of a White-fronted Falconet on a stamp!” he wrote in Digital Review Photography.
The promotional posters were then taken off the Facebook page without further explanation.
It was also removed from Pos Malaysia’s website which had earlier stated that the stamps would be released on Nov 13.
Presently, the latest collection released by Pos Malaysia was the Rare Fruits series on Oct 28.
