Government measures to clamp down on illegal movie downloads are having very little impact, and infringements of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) remain a thorny issue, People First Party Legislator George Hsieh (
Hsieh yesterday demonstrated how easy it is to download a copy of Ang Lee's (
"Although the film is still on the movie circuit, anyone can easily see it for free by downloading a link from a BitTorrent Web site," said Hsieh, who listed 10 sites hosting links to the movie.
PHOTO: CHU PEI-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
"We haven't had much progress in combating copyright infringements of music, motion pictures and other works of art on the Internet," Chen Shu-mei (陳淑美), an official of the Ministry of Economic Affairs' Intellectual Property Office, told the press conference yesterday.
Hsieh expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of the government's strategy to combat Internet piracy, saying that the authorities should try to force file-sharing sites to close down, instead of punishing the sites' users.
"While we have trained police officers in the investigation and prosecution of Internet crimes, it is impossible to comprehensively guard against this kind of activity, as there are too many different BitTorrent servers on the Internet," Chen said.
Internet IPR infringement has been listed as one of the main problems hindering Taiwan's removal from the US' "Special 301 Priority Watch List" of copyright violators.
Government Information Office Minister Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦), when questioned on this issue during a separate event at legislature yesterday, said he would report the BitTorrent sites Hsieh had listed to relevant government agencies.
Cheng said the government was aware of the serious IPR problem posed by downloads of movies and music.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
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