Amendments to the Copyright Law (
"The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry [IFPI] Taiwan represents the majority of the record industry in Taiwan and is dissatisfied with the amendments," Robin Lee (
Changes that define whether piracy is for profit or not have set a threshold that will allow not-for-profit offenders to get off scot-free, Lee said.
On Friday, the legislature said that making more than five copies of a product -- or copies that were worth more than NT$30,000 on the street if sold as legal copies in the original packaging -- constitutes a copyright violation "without intent to profit." The penalty for this crime was increased to a maximum of three years in prison and fines of up to NT$750,000 from the current NT$200,000.
By defining this threshold, those that make fewer than five copies will automatically be decriminalized, Lee said.
If the crime is considered to be for profit, the penalty increases to five years in prison and a fine of up to NT$5 million. A large-scale optical disk counterfeiting operation which is run as "a vocation" would risk a maximum seven-year jail term and fines of up to NT$8 million (US$230,548).
A legal expert agreed that the wording on intent to profit could be exploited.
"This is a distinction I am sure infringers will take advantage of, and indeed there will be infringers who will now try to set up their businesses around this rule," said John Eastwood, a lawyer at Winkler Partners (博仲法律事務所) and co-chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the European Cham-ber of Commerce in Taipei.
There may be more problems ahead. Using the Internet to sell illegal copies of software, movies and music is one area that the law does not sufficiently address, Eastwood said.
Some infringers have claimed they do not make copies. They say the computer user at the other end who downloads material and then burns a copy onto their hard disk or a compact disk are the actual violators. The new law does not clarify this, making more problems ahead for the legislators, Eastwood said.
The passage of the revised law last week was initially well-received by the international business community as it allowed police for the first time to initiate raids on suspected counterfeiters. Before the change, the rights holder had to make a complaint before the police could act.
"It is now a lot easier for the police to take action without waiting for a rights holder to make a complaint first," Eastwood said. "This is what the industry had been pushing for."
But business leaders and officials called for strict enforcement of the new law.
"Although the law has been passed, how to effectively enforce the law is the key," Wu Shan-chun (吳山春), chairman of the Taiwan Anti-piracy Coalition, a group representing the movie, software and music industries said last Friday.
JITTERS: Nexperia has a 20 percent market share for chips powering simpler features such as window controls, and changing supply chains could take years European carmakers are looking into ways to scratch components made with parts from China, spooked by deepening geopolitical spats playing out through chipmaker Nexperia BV and Beijing’s export controls on rare earths. To protect operations from trade ructions, several automakers are pushing major suppliers to find permanent alternatives to Chinese semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The industry is considering broader changes to its supply chain to adapt to shifting geopolitics, Europe’s main suppliers lobby CLEPA head Matthias Zink said. “We had some indications already — questions like: ‘How can you supply me without this dependency on China?’” Zink, who also
The number of Taiwanese working in the US rose to a record high of 137,000 last year, driven largely by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) rapid overseas expansion, according to government data released yesterday. A total of 666,000 Taiwanese nationals were employed abroad last year, an increase of 45,000 from 2023 and the highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic, data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) showed. Overseas employment had steadily increased between 2009 and 2019, peaking at 739,000, before plunging to 319,000 in 2021 amid US-China trade tensions, global supply chain shifts, reshoring by Taiwanese companies and
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) received about NT$147 billion (US$4.71 billion) in subsidies from the US, Japanese, German and Chinese governments over the past two years for its global expansion. Financial data compiled by the world’s largest contract chipmaker showed the company secured NT$4.77 billion in subsidies from the governments in the third quarter, bringing the total for the first three quarters of the year to about NT$71.9 billion. Along with the NT$75.16 billion in financial aid TSMC received last year, the chipmaker obtained NT$147 billion in subsidies in almost two years, the data showed. The subsidies received by its subsidiaries —
At least US$50 million for the freedom of an Emirati sheikh: That is the king’s ransom paid two weeks ago to militants linked to al-Qaeda who are pushing to topple the Malian government and impose Islamic law. Alongside a crippling fuel blockade, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has made kidnapping wealthy foreigners for a ransom a pillar of its strategy of “economic jihad.” Its goal: Oust the junta, which has struggled to contain Mali’s decade-long insurgency since taking power following back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, by scaring away investors and paralyzing the west African country’s economy.
RSS