Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) yesterday said protecting intellectual property (IPR) remains a priority for law-enforcement officers this year and a special task force has been established specifically to investigate IPR-piracy cases.
"The newly-established task force, consisting of prosecutors from the Taiwan High Court Pro-secutors' Office, will have regular meetings from now on. The job of these prosecutors is to nail as many pirates as possible," Chen said.
Although the minister did not say how many prosecutors have been assigned to the new task force, he said the group was established under a direct order from the Cabinet.
He said police officers, special agents from the ministry's Bureau of Investigation and officers from the Ministry of Finance's Intellectual Property Office will also be invited to the regular meetings of the task force.
The formation of the task force comes in the wake of a direct challenge to Chen by someone involved in the illegal copying of movies.
On Jan. 13, a TV news station reported that pirated editions of many new movies, such as Die Another Day and Hero, were available on both VCD and DVD for just NT$100 each at night markets, even before these movies had been shown in local theaters.
The broadcast contained a clip of a DVD player showing the credits from a pirated copy of Die Another Day, but with an additional message tagged on the end -- "Catch me if you can, Chen Ding-nan!"
Chen was quick to respond to the taunt. On Jan. 14 he said such behavior was unbelievable and unforgivable.
He issued a challenge of his own yesterday.
"I also have a comment for these pirates since they left that challenging message for me in that video," Chen said.
"Keep pirating if you dare. If you believe that you will never be caught, well, let me tell you, you are dreaming," he warned.
According to the Intellectual Property Office, law enforcement officers investigated a total of 5,118 cases of IPR abuse last year that involved confiscated pirated publications worth approximately NT$10 billion.
The office said the number of cases declined last year from the 5,270 it handled in 2000, but it noted the total estimated value of confiscated pirated publications had increased from NT$8.2 billion in 2000 to NT$10 billion.
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