Ezpeer, the nation's second largest peer-to-peer (P2P) operator, announced yesterday that it had reached agreement with major record labels to distribute authorized music, making it the first legal P2P file-sharing operator in the greater China region.
The reconciliation between Ezpeer and copyright holders came as a surprise. The Shilin District Court ruled in June last year that Ezpeer was not guilty of infringing on intellectual property rights (IPR) by providing a for-fee platform for subscribers to swap files.
"When the verdict was announced a year ago, I called it the darkest day for the music industry," said Robin Lee (李瑞斌), secretary-general of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) in Taiwan, which filed the lawsuit against Ezpeer.
"But now, I say today signals the dawn of new hope for the industry," Lee said at a press conference yesterday.
Ezpeer's larger rival Kuro, operated by Fashionow Taiwan Inc (
Kuro's top management, including its chairman, chief executive and president, were found guilty of violating IPR by the Taipei District Court in September last year. The trio were sentenced to two to three years in prison and fined NT$3 million (US$91,968) each.
One public relations official at Kuro told the Taipei Times that the firm was delighted to see Ezpeer's new business model, and "hopes to work toward that direction."
Both Lee and Kuro refused to comment on whether the two parties are in talks on a settlement.
Talking about the long-awaited cooperation, Lee said that P2P operators and record companies had differed greatly in defining P2P technology at the start, as P2P operators considered it a neutral tool while record firms deemed the tool a facility to infringe IPR.
However, as P2P operators encountered repeated setbacks internationally over the years, they gradually turned to partnerships with copyright holders.
This helped local operators realize that this was the right way to make their business sustainable, Lee said.
The new Ezpeer -- "Ezpeer+" -- will be opened for testing today and may be launched next month, said Alin Wu (
As KKBOX and Yahoo-Kimo Inc (雅虎奇摩) have entered the legal online music market earlier and saw substantial business, Ezpeer+ hopes to expand on its current subscriber base of 300,000, Wu said, without giving a specific goal.
Ezpeer+ charges P2P users — including members of Ezpeer or other operators — a monthly fee of NT$99 for unlimited swap. Newcomers will have to pay a monthly fee of NT$149 to exchange music files and play on the computer. The company is also working in cooperation with Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), whose Hinet users can log on to the Ezpeer site with their Hinet accounts.
Users who wish to download the files into their digital music players will need to pay NT$249 per month. The downloaded files are in WMA format only, Wu said.
To ensure the quality of the files, record companies will provide Ezpeer+ with their music files, which will be labeled as “golden files” for swapping, Wu said.
When the service is officially launched, there will be 500,000 golden files ready for exchange, he said.
Second-hand files that are circulating among users will be marked “player files,” Wu said.
Profits given to copyright holders — record labels, composers and the Music Copyright Intermediary Society of Chinese Taipei (中華音樂著作權仲介協會) — will be calculated by the number of times a song is played online, Wu said.
He refused to disclose the split percentage, citing confidentiality agreement.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, booked its first-ever profit from its Arizona subsidiary in the first half of this year, four years after operations began, a company financial statement showed. Wholly owned by TSMC, the Arizona unit contributed NT$4.52 billion (US$150.1 million) in net profit, compared with a loss of NT$4.34 billion a year earlier, the statement showed. The company attributed the turnaround to strong market demand and high factory utilization. The Arizona unit counts Apple Inc, Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc among its major customers. The firm’s first fab in Arizona began high-volume production
VOTE OF CONFIDENCE: The Japanese company is adding Intel to an investment portfolio that includes artificial intelligence linchpins Nvidia Corp and TSMC Softbank Group Corp agreed to buy US$2 billion of Intel Corp stock, a surprise deal to shore up a struggling US name while boosting its own chip ambitions. The Japanese company, which is adding Intel to an investment portfolio that includes artificial intelligence (AI) linchpins Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), is to pay US$23 a share — a small discount to Intel’s last close. Shares of the US chipmaker, which would issue new stock to Softbank, surged more than 5 percent in after-hours trading. Softbank’s stock fell as much as 5.4 percent on Tuesday in Tokyo, its
COLLABORATION: Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture would make AI data center equipment, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) would operate a US factory owned by Softbank Group Corp, setting up what is in the running to be the first manufacturing site in the Japanese company’s US$500 billion Stargate venture with OpenAI and Oracle Corp. Softbank is acquiring Hon Hai’s electric-vehicle plant in Ohio, but the Taiwanese company would continue to run the complex after turning it into an artificial intelligence (AI) server production plant, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said yesterday. Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture between the two companies would make AI data
The Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show, which is to be held from Wednesday to Saturday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, would showcase the latest in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven robotics and automation technologies, the organizer said yesterday. The event would highlight applications in smart manufacturing, as well as information and communications technology, the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robotics Association said. More than 1,000 companies are to display innovations in semiconductors, electromechanics, industrial automation and intelligent manufacturing, it said in a news release. Visitors can explore automated guided vehicles, 3D machine vision systems and AI-powered applications at the show, along