Rick Chu (朱立熙), chief executive officer of the Taiwan-based Korean Studies Academy, yesterday accused the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of a breach of copyright after the party allegedly copied his work for a completely different end than it was intended for.
The KMT caucus on Friday presented hundreds of pages of proposed revisions to a draft bill on ill-gotten party assets with the apparent aim of obstructing the bill’s passage by having the documents all read aloud in the legislature.
Revision proposals regarding the name of the bill and one of its articles alone were 300 pages of text, with a large portion of that being explanations of why the revisions were proposed.
Photo: Yen Hung-chun, Taipei Times
Most of the text was found to be passages taken from existing work, including legal texts, Council of Grand Justices interpretations, academic articles, newspapers editorials and the KMT’s own media releases.
One of the academics whose work was reportedly quoted extensively said that the KMT had “copied and pasted” his writing.
An article by Chu on South Korea’s democratic transition was cited almost in its entirety in the revision proposal, Chu said, adding that the KMT had written a conclusion that distorted the ideas of his article.
Chu, a former Taipei Times editor-in-chief who is also a lecturer at Chengchi University’s Department of Korean Language and Culture, said he is supportive of the Democratic Progressive Party’s efforts to deal with ill-gotten party assets and is extremely disappointed with the KMT’s continued obstruction tactics.
He likened the KMT to those implicated in heists targeting automated teller machines in Taipei last week.
What is most despicable is that the party reached a conclusion in its proposal that is completely opposite to the viewpoint in the article, Chu said.
Chu said he felt “raped by the KMT” and would sue the KMT for copyright infringement.
While he said he does not mind his articles being shared, even without attribution, it is unbearable and unforgivable when it is used to support an opposite conclusion, he said.
KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Te-fu (林德福) said attribution was included for Chu’s article.
Lin said that because of new developments, Chu’s words might be dropped in the party’s final version.
Additional reporting by Tseng Wei-che
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