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Yu urges everyone to fight piracy

Premier Yu Shyi-kun points to a sign advertising a hotline telephone number to report piracy and infringements of intellectual property rights and promising up to NT$10 million in rewards to those who call and report piracy cases. Yu was taking part in an anti-intellectual-copyright-piracy event near Taipei's Kuanghua market yesterday. PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES

Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday called on the public to help the government combat intellectual copyright piracy by calling the toll free number 0800-016-597 and earn a chance to get a top cash reward of NT$10 million.

"While law-enforcement officers have to risk their lives to get the NT$10 million reward by nailing a felon, anyone is entitled to the same amount by reporting pirate disk factories to the police," Yu said.

Yu made the remark yesterday morning during an anti-piracy event sponsored by the Cabinet near the Kuanghwa Market, Taipei's central cut-price computer market and a well-known site for counterfeited software.

Yu also called on the public not to buy, sell or manufacture counterfeit products.

"I feel trepidation when it comes to battling piracy," he said. "The public should feel proud of refusing counterfeits and buying copyrighted products."

Although the government has made progress in seizing counterfeit products since Jan. 1 last year when the nation gained accession to the WTO, Yu said that there is still a lot of room for improvement.

"While law-enforcement officers have to risk their lives to get the NT$10 million reward by nailing a felon, anyone is entitled to the same amount by reporting pirate disk factories to the police."

Yu Shyi-kun, premier

According to Yu, the value of counterfeit products seized by the government increased by over 22 percent last year and were worth more than NT$10 billion.

However, the nation remains on the US' Special 301 Priority Watch List and Washington has branded it as one of the worst protectors of intellectual property rights [IPR] in the world. It has been on the watch list for the past four years.

The Cabinet has adopted drastic measures to combat piracy, including raising the reward for tip-offs from NT$1 million to NT$10 million and bumping the reward for law-enforcement officers to up to NT$2 million.

In a bid to tighten laws regulating IPR, the legislature has passed draft amendments to the Patent Law (專利法). The Cabinet has also approved the draft amendments to the Optical Media Law (光碟管理條例) and Commercial Label Law (商標法), both of which are pending before the legislative.

The Cabinet approved the draft amendments to the Copyright Law (著作權法) last month which would impose public prosecution on those who reproduce, sell or lease counterfeit products.

The draft amendments would increase the maximum fines for 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 legislature is scheduled to review the proposed amendment next week.

The National Police Administration has also established an IPR Protection Police Corps on Jan. 1 that will specialize in investigating IPR crimes. The 220-person special unit is authorized to conduct raids on disk factories in the nation's six major cities and stakeouts in night markets.

To curb the export of counterfeit optical media, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of the Interior have formed a task force to conduct inspections at customs and disk factories, while the Ministry of Economic has also strengthened its management of factories that make optical media.
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