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Copyright Law gets major makeover

"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]."

Robin Lee, secretary general of theInternational Federation of the Phonographic Industry

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 (李瑞斌), secretary general of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) in Taiwan, which represents record-industry heavyweights.

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 (楊智謀) said that despite the article did not even reviewed by the Legislature, the company will not give up on its efforts to legalize the online file-sharing business.
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