The largest local on-line music-sharing Web site, Kuro.com.tw, has enlisted the help of a seasoned political campaigner to protest a plan by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) in Taiwan to sue the Web site and its subscribers for downloading music without the permission of the copyright holders.
Campaign expert Brian Wu (吳祥輝), convener and initiator of the "MP3 Users Surrender Alliance" (MP3使用者自首行動聯盟), said he can mobilize 2 million digital-music file sharers to turn themselves in at the nation's police stations and thus clog the legal system to protest the music industry's actions.
IFPI's lawsuits are the result of US diplomatic pressure on Taiwan, Wu claimed.
The US and other governments regularly complain that Taiwan does not protect intellectual property rights (IPR) effectively.
"They [IFPI] have hijacked the Government Information Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Presidential Office, forcing the government to listen to them," Wu said.
IFPI intends to demonize the 2 million MP3 users in Taiwan, and 300 million worldwide, Wu said.
Kuro provides a platform on which registered members can swap audio or video files for a monthly fee of NT$99 per person.
IFPI claims Kuro has infringed the copyrights of its members by allowing people to download music that they had not paid for. It therefore filed several lawsuits against Kuro and some of its members earlier this year. Police then launched a crackdown on Kuro members in June.
IFPI has also asked Kuro's Internet service provider, HiNet, to end its contract with the site.
Campaigner Wu says the law favors the music industry. "The law we have now allows only the large recording companies to dominate the market, giving them the opportunity to exploit singers and customers," he said.
Wu declared war on the IFPI, threatening to choke local courts.
"Since we are violating the Copyright Law, we will surrender to the police. When 2 million MP3 users here surrender together ? let's see what the nation's judiciary system will do," Wu said.
Kuro's lawyers say that the site is doing nothing wrong and that it is merely a search engine, which is a neutral technology.
"It's ridiculous to prohibit the use of a copy machine because somebody uses it to make illegal copies," said Lee Chung-teh (李宗德), an attorney at Lee, Tsai and Partners. "We realize that a few Kuro members are illegally selling music downloaded from this site, but most members make reasonable use of this software. Partly illegal does not mean the whole site is illegal."
Last month, Kuro offered to increased its monthly fee by NT$50 per person and pass this on to the music industry as a form of royalty payment. The music industry rejected the offer.
"Its' ridiculous... It's like somebody stole my property, sold it for cash, and then told me I can get a share of the spoils," said Robin Lee (
IFPI had been willing to reach an agreement with Kuro, but Kuro was indifferent to the protection of the music industry's rights, Lee said.
Also See Story:
NetCoalition raises objections to subpoenas on file swapping
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) latest smartphones carry a version of the advanced made-in-China processor it revealed last year, results from an independent analysis showed. This underscored the Chinese company’s ability to sustain production of the controversial chip. The Pura 70 series unveiled last week sports the Kirin 9010 processor, research firm TechInsights found during a teardown of the device. This is a newer version of the Kirin 9000s, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) for the Mate 60 Pro, which had alarmed officials in Washington who thought a 7-nanometer chip was beyond China’s capabilities. Huawei has enjoyed a resurgence since
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li