A local rapper is refusing to back down in a slander battle with a legislator, refusing to apologize for calling the lawmaker corrupt even though he faces a possible prison sentence if convicted.
Rapper Jeff Huang (
"What I wrote in my lyrics was the truth. I do not understand why I should apologize," Huang said. "If she [Chiu] criticizes my music, I am more than happy to accept it."
"But she is complaining about the truth, and I will not compromise when it comes to that," he said. Huang made his remarks when he was approached by reporters yesterday.
Huang said he was only expressing dissatisfaction over a proposal by several legislators to amend copyright laws in 2003.
The amendment would have created a mechanism for artists to receive limited compensation for their work when downloaded by clients from legal Web sites, while operators would also have to pay a certain percentage of their profits to copyright holders.
At the time, Huang said the compensation proposed in the amendment was "trivial," and that the Web sites were infringing on an artist's intellectual property rights.
Last year, after a not-guilty ruling by the court on the music download Web site ezPeer, Huang was furious. He composed a song called Retribution in which he named legislators, saying they had been bribed by Web site operators and were "murdering" Taiwan's music industry.
In response to Huang's lyrics, the legislators decided to sue him for damage done to their reputations.
Chiu, a former legislator who was named in the song, said that all she wanted was an apology.
She said that Huang's lyrics had threatened her personal safety, insulted her and her fellow lawmakers, and had described them using profanities.
"[Huang] may have misunderstood, or simply did not understand the background of what we have been doing. I just need an apology. That is all," Chiu said.
Meanwhile, Government Information Office Minister Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) expressed hope that the legislators and the rapper could reach an out of court settlement in a defamation lawsuit.
Cheng said establishing legal download Web sites is the government's set policy, which he said is a "benign development in the music industry."
He urged people from all corners of society to discuss the proposed legal amendment with peace and patience.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the