Ezpeer.com.tw, Taiwan's second-largest online file-sharing Web site, is now scheduled to follow the nation's largest site into court on charges of copyright infringement, music industry representatives confirmed yesterday.
In August last year, the Taiwan branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) filed charges with the Shihlin District Public Proesuctors' Office against Ezpeer, claiming the file-sharing, or peer-to-peer, site was allowing its subscribers to download and share music files without paying royalties to the rights holders.
On Tuesday, the office finally charged the site -- which charges its 300,000 subscribers NT$100 per month to use its services -- with copyright infringement.
"I was informed of Ezpeer's indictment yesterday afternoon by the Shihlin prosecutors' office, but I have received no official papers yet," IFPI Taiwan secretary-general Robin Lee (李瑞斌) told the Taipei Times yesterday evening.
"The final outcome is good for us, but I will have a more complete reaction to the news once I have seen the official papers," Lee said.
The 15-month wait for an indictment at the Shihlin court contrasts sharply with the 3-month fast-track for the 500,000-member Kuro.com.tw (飛行網), which was served papers late last week following the IFPI's August complaint at the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office.
Taiwan is eager to prove to critics from the entertainment industry at home and abroad, who claim pirates here are killing their business, that it is getting tough on intellectual property rights (IPR) protection. In October, the government announced that the Internet was its new front in the war against piracy after markedly increasing the seizures this year of bootlegged audio, video and software disks.
But the industry is still fiercely critical of the slow judicial process here.
"As of the end of the third quarter of this year there are 15 [pirate disk] factory cases outstanding, awaiting resolution in Tai-wan's courts," Michael Ellis, a vice president at the Motion Picture Association's Hong Kong regional office, told delegates at an IPR seminar in Taipei on Tuesday. "These cases relate back to 2000."
RSS