Those who reproduce, sell or lease counterfeited products would be subject to public prosecution if draft amendments to the Copyright Law (
To make the punishment a more effective deterrent, the draft would also increase the maximum fines for severe copyright violators from NT$1 million to NT$5 million in civil cases and from NT$450,000 to NT$8 million in criminal cases.
The draft, approved by the Executive Yuan yesterday, will proceed to the legislature for further review and final approval.
Addressing the press conference held after the weekly closed-door Cabinet meeting yesterday morning, Cabinet spokesman Lin Chia-lung (
"However, while harsher punishments may be an effective deterrent, related government agencies should educate the public to buy copyrighted products and be proud of refusing counterfeits," Lin quoted Premier Yu Shyi-kun as saying.
To make existing laws regulating Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) more complete, Lin said, the Cabinet has promulgated the Patent Law (專利法) and approved the draft amendments to the Optical Media Law (光碟管理條例) and Commercial Label Law (商標法),which are both awaiting approval by the legislature.
The Cabinet has also raised the reward for tip-offs from NT$1 million to NT$10 million and bumped the reward for law enforcement officers to up to NT$2 million.
Statistics made available yesterday by the Cabinet showed that since the government launched the intensive piracy crackdown campaign three weeks ago, a total of NT$918 million worth of pirated optical media -- including CD-ROMS, VCDs and DVDs -- have been seized in Tainan, Taipei and Taichung counties as of March 18.
Under the draft of the Copyright Law, those who duplicate, sell or lease copyrighted products would be subject to public prosecution.
The draft would also increase the maximum civil indemnity from NT$500,000 to NT$1 million. The amount could go up to as much as NT$5 million for serious offenders.
The maximum criminal indemnity would also go up to as much as NT$8 million for serious offenders. Currently, the maximum fine is NT$450,000.
To more effectively curb the export of pirated products, the draft would empower customs agents to check and confiscate counterfeits.
The draft would also legalize "temporary reproduction," which is defined as storing a work for a short period of time in the working memory of a computer instead of on the hard disk.
Such works could include a film, picture, text, music, computer software or Internet information.
In other words, duplicating copyrighted books or downloading MP3s or transmitting music on-line for personal or educational purposes would be legal. People who engage in such activities would face prosecution only if the copyright owner files a lawsuit.
To legalize the on-line use of copyrighted material from the Internet, the draft would allow users to distribute copyrighted publications within "a reasonable realm."
Beyond such reasonable use, digital distributers would have to obtain the consent of the copyright holder.
The draft would also make vendors of counterfeit goods subject to civil indemnity if they sell pirated products unknowingly and subject to both civil and criminal indemnity if they do it on purpose.
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