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Taipei prosecutors question 20 people over VCD copying

Taipei prosecutors have questioned more than 20 people -- mostly college and university students -- for reproducing and distributing a VCD allegedly depicting a female politician and her married lover, local media reported yesterday.

The 40-minute sex video, which allegedly depicts a sexual encounter between the New Party's Chu Mei-feng (璩美鳳) and married businessman Tseng Chung-ming (曾仲銘), was originally included for free in last week's edition of Scoop Weekly.

After the magazine hit the market on Dec. 17, the VCDs were pirated and widely distributed. Many of the VCDs were made by college and university students and have flooded local campuses.

In an effort to halt the reproduction of the VCDs, Shih Mao-lin (施茂林), head prosecutor of the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office, says that his office has questioned more than 20 suspects for duplicating and spreading the sex VCD.

"Most of the suspects are college and university students," the prosecutor said.

"Some of those involved in the case are students who attend famous national universities," he added.

According to Chang Shao-pin (張紹斌), a prosecutor who is responsible for the case, many of the students are selling the pirated VCDs to their schoolmates or posting it on their Web sites.

Prosecutors have targeted a number of students and will take action after all the evidence is collected.

Chang also emphasized yesterday that even those who send the video footage to their friends via e-mail on the Internet have violated an article of the Criminal Code, which makes it illegal to violate a person's privacy.

"Those who have distributed the sex VCDs may be sentenced for up to five years in jail," Chang stressed.

Meanwhile, Chen Ching-chang (陳景章), director of the computer center under the Ministry of Education, said yesterday that the education ministry has repeatedly affirmed its determination to ban the illegal use of school networks.

The education ministry will soon require every school to establish a committee in order to regulate the usage of school networks.

As the sex video rapidly circulates via the Internet, a new computer virus, carrying the same name as the sex video, has infected PCs and notebooks across the nation over the past few days.

According to Symantec (賽門鐵克), a computer software company, the "Shoho" (笑呵呵) virus has attacked a number of computers via an e-mail, entitled "Sex VCD" in Chinese.

The company therefore urged Microsoft IE users to update their anti-virus software.
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