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Software industry walks copyright tightrope

With the spotlight on Taiwan's protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) after it was placed on the US Trade Representative's Special 301 Priority Watch List of serious IPR violators once again last week, government officials and technology firms are continuing to walk a tightrope between individual and corporate rights.

"It is possible that sometimes in protecting the rights of copyright holders the legislature can step on the rights of individuals," Chang Chung-hsin (章中信), a specialist in the copyright department of the government's Intellectual Property Office, told the Taipei Times yesterday.

"But we also have to respect the rights of individuals and work together with industry and law-makers to make sure we get the right balance," Chang said.

On the one hand there are those that create. Copyright holders in the movie and music industries are opposed to individuals making any copies of the video-compact disks (VCDs), CDs and DVDs they buy.

"Individuals should not be allowed to make copies [of our products] illegally," said Tu Ming (涂銘), managing director of Twentieth Century Fox Taiwan.

"They should contact Twentieth Century Fox to get permission to make a copy for individual use," Tu said.

Since the advent of Sony Corp's home video-tape recorder in 1964, the movie industry has been struggling to make copying machines illegal.

"The entertainment industry doesn't really want any copies made," said Jeffrey Harris, co-chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei's Intellectual Property Committee and director of Orient Commercial Enquiries, a consulting firm specializing in IPR.

"Each time a new technology comes along they try to take people to court to stop it. They took action against the video recorder, and now they are doing the same with DVD copiers," Harris said.

US-based 321 Studios, developers of the first software on the market that allowed users to make "flawless" copies of DVD disks -- including movies -- is locked in a legal battle with the movie industry.

The software complies with Fair Use regulations, 321 Studios says. The company's software violates the US' 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, industry representatives counter.

On the other side of the table are those who say the right to make copies of legally purchased products for personal use has been enshrined in the US' Fair Use Act.

Taping TV programs, making a compilation CD, making back-up copies of software are all protected by the act.

Taiwan has modeled its own Copyright Law (著作法) on the US legislation, including amendments that protect the "reasonable use" of copying by individuals.

"The burden of proof is with the individual, but in general making copies to make money is an infringement of the law," Harris said.

Special interest groups in this country have protested amendments to the Copyright Law that will make it easier to arrest infrin-gers, saying the changes were designed to protect powerful US lobby groups such as the movie, music and software industries.

Students demanded that they be exempt from prosecution for copying textbooks and software, and some legislators have even raised the idea in the Legislative Yuan only to have it shot down.

"The students' requests were totally unreasonable," Chang said. "They pay for accommodation and for services on campus. Why should they be able to copy textbooks and software without paying?"

Still, owners of copyrighted material are unlikely to okay end users to burn copies onto their computers or blank disks.

"The software companies enable users to make copies, but they warn you that it might be illegal, which covers them legally," said Claire Boyce, a disk-burning software expert who has worked in the disk-drive industry for over six years.

"It is certainly a gray area," she said.

Bill Hsiun (熊肇峰), a spokesman at video-editing software specialist Ulead Systems Taiwan, stressed that the company "has no intention of developing any products that would allow the illegal copying of commercial DVDs."

Another disk-burning software developer puts warnings on its products about the risks of prosecution if copyrighted material is copied illegally.

"We are not specialized in copy-ing CDs or DVDs," said Jenny Menhart, spokeswoman for Ahead Software GmbH, the German makers of Nero CD burning software, a popular choice for students in this country.

Like Ulead, Nero markets its products as a tool for creating back-up disks and personal edits, using video, images and music that the individual creates or has the rights to.

Nero's rival in disk-burning software, Roxio Inc, was the only one to admit yesterday that its users made copies of copyrighted material for personal use.

"We support the Fair Use Act enabling consumers to record and store copyrighted content they have purchased," said Roxio's public relations specialist, Simone Souza in an e-mail.

To stop the illegal copying of its products, the movie industry has encoded DVDs, and tried to make blank DVDs and DVD recorders illegal, but with no success.

"Technology is not the only method we should be able to use to stop piracy," Tu said. "We have to use education and legal methods too."

Meanwhile, the heat is about to be turned up on the industry. With the introduction of digital TV in Europe, the US and parts of Asia, consumers will demand DVD quality home recordings -- an upgrade of the VCR to the DVD recorder.

Ulead, Ahead and Roxio are all currently developing software to record TV programs directly onto DVDs and VCDs.
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