Taiwanese police yesterday pulled the plug on Web servers that had been allegedly providing illegal live streaming movies to online viewers around the globe.
The venture -- Eternity Italy Ltd, a virtual company registered in the British Virgin Islands -- used Taipei-based Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) servers to link to the Internet.
"The servers, considered criminal tools, have been officially confiscated by police to immediately force Movie88.com out of business worldwide," said Lu Wen-hsiang (
Lu said Taiwan's Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) has identified the Web site's operators as Tan Soo Leong (
Last November, Tan registered the Web site domain in the US state of Virginia using the address and telephone number of Chunghwa Telecom -- a move suspected to have been taken to utilize a legal loophole in Taiwan.
During a recent interview with Time magazine, Tan defended himself against charges he broke international copyright laws, saying that "there is no way the US is going to interfere with the law in Taiwan."
Tan also said that he had spent three months studying Taiwanese law and concluded that "if a movie is not released in Taiwan within 30 days of its release elsewhere, it is no longer protected by Taiwanese copyright law."
In response, Lu yesterday said that Tan had obviously misinterpreted Taiwanese law.
Citing Article 91 of Taiwan's Copyright Law, Lu said that Tan and Yap face a jail term of up to seven years if prosecuted.
Eric Lee (李相臣), chief of the CIB's Internet crime squad, yesterday said that after investigating the case for more than a month, police had originally planned to arrest the suspects when they returned to Taiwan to update computer equipment. However, recent reports by Time magazine, CNET and other media on Movie88 forced them to move in and shut down the Web site ahead of schedule, he said.
"The case has now been blown, but we will continue to investigate whether any other Taiwanese employees are involved," Lee said.
Lee added that the CIB had contacted Interpol to find out if their Malaysian counterparts could assist in arresting the two suspects.
The Motion Picture Association of American, moreover, yesterday decided to take legal action against Tan via civil lawsuits.
"We will never settle for mediation. We want them in jail as a warning to all copyright infringers," said Hank Kwuo (郭戎), executive director of Motion Picture Association of Taiwan.
While applauding the police action yesterday, Kwuo complained that "action should have been taken earlier and Taiwan's judicial system has been shown to be inadequate."
Local authorities wasted time chasing useless leads only to later turn to a Thailand-based credit card company for assistance in revealing the operators' real identities, Kwuo said.
Kwuo also criticized state-run Chunghwa for lax screening of server applicants.
Skirting any responsibility, Chunghwa president Lee Yen-sung (
"It's like providing a parking space [for Internet servers]. We have no idea what content they host," Lee said.
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