The nation's biggest VCD-piracy bust occurred yesterday morning as police raided the basement of a commercial building in Hsichih (汐止), Taipei County, confiscating hundreds of thousands of counterfeit VCDs and arresting around 30 employees of the Hsin-wei Co (鑫瑋), along with the owner Hu Chung-lin (胡鍾琳), Chinese-language media reported yesterday.
The illegally produced VCDs, found stacked in the basement, included copies of Microsoft's Office 2000, Lotus Smart Suite, Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2002 and pornographic films.
Hu was immediately taken into custody for violating the Copyright Law (
According to the report, the pirated goods were to be smug-gled into the US, or sold in Taiwan.
The total market value of the confiscated VCDs exceeds NT$500 million, the report said.
This is not the first time that Hu has attracted media attention.
Hsin-wei Co is the new name of Chung-ti Technology (中帝科技), which gained notoriety for its involvement in duplicating the VCD that featurs in the Chu Mei-feng (璩美鳳) sex scandal.
Scoop (獨家報導) magazine distributed VCDs five months ago that featured Chu, the former chief of the Hsinchu City Bureau of Cultural Affairs and her married boyfriend making love.
Hu was indicted on Feb. 7 for his involvement in the Chu sex-VCD scandal, along with 10 other defendants.
After his arrest yesterday, Hu denied any involvement in counterfeiting software.
He said that his company possesses authorization from the various software manufacturers.
Taipei City police have invited the software makers to assist in the investigation.
On April 18, the US FBI arrested 27 people in a coordinated crackdown on a large, loosely affiliated group of dealers of counterfeit software in San Francisco, California -- three of whom were suspected of working for Chung-ti Technology.
As part of a joint effort to investigate the intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement case, the Ministry of Justice has dispatched prosecutors to the US and detained Hu and his wife.
Chung-ti Technology's name has surfaced before in connection with alleged IPR violations.
In November 2000, the US seized some pirated software VCDs from Taiwan with a value of more than US$100 million that were later linked to Hu's company.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard