A campaign video for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) used footage and lines from a short film made by the National Cheng Kung University student association in 2014 without permission, a former association member said.
The video, made by a supporter of Han and titled Han Kuo-yu: Help Me Go Home (韓國瑜─幫我回家), was uploaded on YouTube on Friday last week and has since been viewed 600,000 times.
It tells the story of a man working in Taipei wanting to go home to Kaohsiung to vote in next month’s nine-in-one elections.
The supporter said in a statement on their YouTube account that they made the video because Han has limited campaign funds.
It was made by recycling footage from a number of ads, the supporter said, adding that they would remove the video if it has encroached upon any copyrights.
The video’s creator is unrelated to Han, his campaign team said.
Han had not seen the ad until its release and was not aware of the issue of using unauthorized footage, it added.
The campaign video used considerable amount of footage from the association’s short film titled 1129 Go Home and Vote (“1129，回家投票”), which cost more than NT$100,000, the former association member said.
The unauthorized content begins at the 1:32 minute mark and lasts until the 2:37 minute mark, which accounts for more than half of the original film, the student said.
“The ad even copied the lines without changing a single word. This has caused some logical errors in the ad’s plot,” the student said.
For example, in the original movie, a university student mentions having to travel 325km from Tainan to Taipei to vote, they said.
The same line is used in the ad, even though the distance the person in the campaign ad must travel is 359km, they added.
The association would have no problems with the ad if the student body was credited in the video and the creator made it clear that the video was not made to generate a profit, but the creator did not credit the student body and the video was made to promote an electoral campaign, the students said.
Although Han was not involved in the production of the ad, he should publicly condemn plagiarism, the student said.
Additional reporting by Ann Maxon
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