The US Motion Picture Association (MPA) has teamed up with local law enforcement and copyright protection agencies to launch a crackdown on pirated movies over the holidays.
"We will target night markets, retail outlets and street vendors in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung," Hank Kwo (
Dubbed "operation eraser," the plan is expected to go after more than 100 street vendors in Taiwan's night markets, 1,500 retail outlets and warehouses, and Internet Web sites that cater to downloading of movies free of charge.
Kwo has a team of 12 investigators that serve full-time to hunt down fake movie peddlers. Upon locating the alleged culprit, police have to be notified, which is often a lengthy, cumbersome process, according to Kwo.
"The problem of piracy is getting worse as the copyright law requires the copyright owner to file a complaint before the police can carry out a raid," Kwo said.
One out of every two video DVDs or VCDs sold in Taiwan is a pirated copy.
Kwo blames the problem of piracy in Taiwan on the government for dragging its feet on amending the copyright law. If the law was amended so police could conduct their own investigations and raids without the need for an official complaint being filed, the number of successful prosecutions could triple, he said.
The MPA this year has provided police with information that has led to the seizure of 2,190,453 pirated disks nationwide, a 25 percent increase over last year, Kwo said.
"The Ministry of Economic Affairs, which oversees intellectual property rights in Taiwan, has agreed to change the copyright law, but has not given us a timetable as yet," Kwo said. "We are very disappointed by this."
Hollywood studios Disney, Fox, MGM, Paramount, Universal and Warner Brothers fund the MPA's efforts as members. The association estimates that the US movie industry loses in excess of US$3 billion in lost revenues globally each year due to pirated disks.
Meanwhile, the music industry is not in much better shape.
"Starting in 1997, local music industry sales have dropped 20 percent annually due to piracy," said Robin Lee (李瑞斌), secretary general of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry in Taiwan. "By last year the market size fell to only one half of what it was in 1997."
Lee's organization has been been pressuring the Ministry of Economic Affairs to increase the size of its piracy task force. Lee wants to see the 100 officer team increased to 220, and has urged the ministry to improve training and equipment. Last year Lee's organization carried out 2,235 raids in Taiwan resulting in 2,350 court cases.
Nearly 75 percent of those cases were thrown out of court thanks to the strategy of clever gangsters, Lee said. Music pirates often use teenagers to front their sales operations, since minors under 18 cannot be prosecuted. This year the IFPI has changed its tactics and is instead targeting larger warehouses and packaging firms. As of the end of November, more than 1,000 cases had been successfully prosecuted.
One law firm that deals with intellectual property infringements in Taiwan also says more needs to be done to solve the problem of pirated disks.
"There has been a lot of high-level commitment to intellectual property rights in the Taiwan government, but this is not really understood at street level by those enforcing the law," said John Eastwood, a lawyer at Winkler Partners in Taipei.
Eastwood is also co-chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the European Chamber of Commerce in Taipei.
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