Not long ago, a Taiwanese entertainer, who is the chief executive officer of a professional basketball league, was criticized for using a Ubox to stream pirated content from the Tokyo Olympics. As Ubox and many other set-top boxes, also known as “illicit streaming devices,” provide access to TV channels and video content via the Internet, would consumers be contravening the Copyright Act (著作權法) if they use such devices at home? Will the government continue to strictly safeguard copyright after the Olympics? These are issues that should be given consideration.
The seller of Ubox emphasizes during the sales process that the device is examined by the authorities and everything is legal.
However, passing the examination merely means that the hardware’s radio frequency is normal; it does not guarantee that the video content accessed via the device is legally authorized by copyright holders. In other words, if the streaming content is not authorized by the local or international media, such content is illegal.
When the National Communications Commission issued an approval certificate for Ubox in 2017, it specifically included a warning saying that the scope of approval does not include the video content available once the device is connected to the Internet.
The commission added a passage in February last year, saying that the seller and the buyer of the device must pay attention to and respect intellectual property rights. This shows that the approval does not include the streaming content.
A Ubox sells for about NT$4,000, and there are no additional subscription fees. In comparison, an annual subscription for cable TV is about NT$6,000. This shows that the cost of a Ubox is even less than the cost of a one-year cable TV subscription. How could that include authorization by TV stations?
Absurdly, many of the apps that can be downloaded to a Ubox to stream channels can only be used on the device. Most people seem to believe that since purchasing the device is not against the law, they can get away with using it, but if a consumer is aware that the content streaming on the device is pirated, they could be in contravention of the act.
Furthermore, if a piracy streaming control room is found by police, user devices at the receiving end lose their signal, so their usage rights cannot be protected.
The operation of a commercial enterprise requires huge capital. TV stations need to pay massive broadcasting rights fees to air the Olympics, and producing a show also requires a lot of capital. Producing high-quality shows is a display of a country’s soft power, but that power is eroded when people watch pirated content on set-top boxes.
Besides, it takes a lot of national resources to crack down on piracy, including prosecutors and police collecting evidence, targeting control rooms and dealers, applying for search warrants, and questioning and investigating the suspects after raids.
If everyone says “no” to piracy, perhaps the national resources that are allocated to the fight against streaming piracy could be reallocated to where they are truly needed. That being so, Taiwan’s film and TV industry would likely increase its international visibility and soft power.
Tai Chih-chuan is a lawyer.
Translated by Eddy Chang
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS