Washington brought out its top guns Tuesday to persuade Taiwan to crack down on rampant piracy of entertainment media and computer software as a delegation of "pan-green" legislators began the first full day of a goodwill visit to the nation's capital.
More than a dozen legislators spent nearly an hour listening to Jack Valenti, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America, complaining about piracy in Taiwan and its impact on the US entertainment industry.
Also at the meeting was Representative Robert Wexler, the founder and chairman of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, a group formed in the spring to act as Taiwan's voice in the US Congress.
The presence of Valenti, a Democratic party powerhouse and member of the Kennedy clan, was significant in that it underscored the importance with which Washington views the piracy issue, which has become one of the sorest points in Taiwan's relations with the US.
"When you have one of America's greatest exports being stolen wantonly in Taiwan and without any really effective means to stop it, it does cause you some anxiety," Valenti told the Taipei Times after the Capitol Hill meeting.
"Taiwan is the largest exporter in the world of illegal material. It is the distribution point for the export of these pirated optical discs and music all over the world," he said.
Music and movie piracy is costing the US entertainment industry US$350 million a year, Valenti said. He criticized Taiwan's government for not taking the steps needed to combat piracy and said that Wexler, a leading Taiwan supporter in Congress, "is worried about this problem and thinks that Taiwan must address it, and soon."
He noted, for example, that piracy is not a major crime.
"The police have no authority on their own to stop a pirate. They have to wait until somebody complains. No other police force in the world is under such restrictions," he said. "They need to correct that."
Taiwan must also close illegal pirate factories "that are in operation in all major cities in Taiwan," he said.
Legislator Mark Chen (
"We are already in the process of trying to make a law regulating the situation," he told the Taipei Times. "If we have the law, then, of course we can prosecute," he said.
He said that the legislature was "well aware" of the problems Valenti cited, but that while the legislature was trying to fix the problem, "it would take some time."
Chen said that he and others did not realize the seriousness of the situation before the meeting, nor how much the US movie industry is losing.
"We are aware that as a civilized nation, as a democracy, it is important for us to pursue this. Otherwise, in the international community, we are losing our reputation, which we don't want to happen in Taiwan."
The 34-member delegation of DPP and TSU legislators arrived Monday and will leave Washington today after an intensive round of meetings with US congressmen and officials.
In addition to meeting many of the roughly 116 members of the recently-formed Taiwan Caucus, the group had breakfast Tuesday with several State Department officials and were to be briefed yesterday by Pentagon officials on last week's Defense Department report on China's military capabilities and their potential threat to Taiwan.
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