Representatives from copyright holders and trade groups yesterday welcomed new amendments to the Copyright Law (著作權法), which were passed by the Legislative Yuan on Tuesday.
"Taiwan may finally have a chance of getting off the US' `Special 301' priority watch list this fall," John Eastwood, a lawyer at Wenger Vieli Belser and co-chairman of the Intellectual Property Committee of the European Chamber of Commerce Taipei, told the Taipei Times in a phone interview yesterday.
The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) retained Taiwan on the priority watch list for the fourth consecutive year after it released its "2004 Special 301 Report Watch List" in May.
The USTR will conduct another review at the end of September to evaluate Taiwan's progress.
While lauding the progress being made in legislation, Eastwood said he hopes the government to increase police and prosecution resources to execute the law, adding that more training on the task force will be helpful to crack down piracy.
Tsai Lien-sheng (蔡練生), director-general of the Intellectual Property Office under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, said that the amendments may eventually lead to a free trade agreement with the US.
The new amendments provide more protection to digital-content publications.
The law now stipulates that without authorization from copyright holders, users are not allowed to decode encrypted CDs, DVDs and video and audio files from the Internet. Violators will be sentenced to up to a year in prison or fined between NT$20,000 to NT$250,000.
"We are glad to see that the new law strengthens protection against online piracy and pirated optical media products, which were not addressed in the last version [of the Copyright Law]," said Robin Lee (
The new amendments also clarify the definition of piracy, which previously stated that making more than five copies of a product -- or copies that were worth more than NT$30,000 in street value if sold in original packaging -- constitutes a copyright violation "without intent to profit."
The phrase "intent to profit" can easily be exploited by copyright violators.
The new rule states that anyone who reproduces the intellectual properties without authorization can be sentence to three years in prison.
In addition, Article 51, a high-profile section in the draft that proposes compensation measures to copyright holders from losses caused by peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing software, was shut down.
The music and movie industries allege that the wide availability of file-sharing software has eroded their massive profits.
IFPI Taiwan has filed lawsuits against the nation's two largest P2P music file-sharing sites -- kuro.com.tw (飛行網) and Ezpeer.com.tw.
Kuro spokesman Eric Yang (
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has secured three construction permits for its plan to build a state-of-the-art A14 wafer fab in Taichung, and is likely to start construction soon, the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau said yesterday. Speaking with CNA, Wang Chun-chieh (王俊傑), deputy director general of the science park bureau, said the world’s largest contract chipmaker has received three construction permits — one to build a fab to roll out sophisticated chips, another to build a central utility plant to provide water and electricity for the facility and the other to build three office buildings. With the three permits, TSMC
The DBS Foundation yesterday announced the launch of two flagship programs, “Silver Motion” and “Happier Caregiver, Healthier Seniors,” in partnership with CCILU Ltd, Hondao Senior Citizens’ Welfare Foundation and the Garden of Hope Foundation to help Taiwan face the challenges of a rapidly aging population. The foundation said it would invest S$4.91 million (US$3.8 million) over three years to foster inclusion and resilience in an aging society. “Aging may bring challenges, but it also brings opportunities. With many Asian markets rapidly becoming super-aged, the DBS Foundation is working with a regional ecosystem of like-minded partners across the private, public and people sectors
BREAKTHROUGH TECH: Powertech expects its fan-out PLP system to become mainstream, saying it can offer three-times greater production throughput Chip packaging service provider Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技) plans to more than double its capital expenditures next year to more than NT$40 billion (US$1.31 billion) as demand for its new panel-level packaging (PLP) technology, primarily used in chips for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, has greatly exceeded what it can supply. A significant portion of the budget, about US$1 billion, would be earmarked for fan-out PLP technology, Powertech told investors yesterday. Its heavy investment in fan-out PLP technology over the past 10 years is expected to bear fruit in 2027 after the technology enters volume production, it said, adding that the tech would
RSS