Washington brought out its top guns Tuesday to persuade Taiwan to crack down on rampant piracy of entertainment media and computer software as a delegation of "pan-green" legislators began the first full day of a goodwill visit to the nation's capital.
More than a dozen legislators spent nearly an hour listening to Jack Valenti, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America, complaining about piracy in Taiwan and its impact on the US entertainment industry.
Also at the meeting was Representative Robert Wexler, the founder and chairman of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, a group formed in the spring to act as Taiwan's voice in the US Congress.
The presence of Valenti, a Democratic party powerhouse and member of the Kennedy clan, was significant in that it underscored the importance with which Washington views the piracy issue, which has become one of the sorest points in Taiwan's relations with the US.
"When you have one of America's greatest exports being stolen wantonly in Taiwan and without any really effective means to stop it, it does cause you some anxiety," Valenti told the Taipei Times after the Capitol Hill meeting.
"Taiwan is the largest exporter in the world of illegal material. It is the distribution point for the export of these pirated optical discs and music all over the world," he said.
Music and movie piracy is costing the US entertainment industry US$350 million a year, Valenti said. He criticized Taiwan's government for not taking the steps needed to combat piracy and said that Wexler, a leading Taiwan supporter in Congress, "is worried about this problem and thinks that Taiwan must address it, and soon."
He noted, for example, that piracy is not a major crime.
"The police have no authority on their own to stop a pirate. They have to wait until somebody complains. No other police force in the world is under such restrictions," he said. "They need to correct that."
Taiwan must also close illegal pirate factories "that are in operation in all major cities in Taiwan," he said.
Legislator Mark Chen (
"We are already in the process of trying to make a law regulating the situation," he told the Taipei Times. "If we have the law, then, of course we can prosecute," he said.
He said that the legislature was "well aware" of the problems Valenti cited, but that while the legislature was trying to fix the problem, "it would take some time."
Chen said that he and others did not realize the seriousness of the situation before the meeting, nor how much the US movie industry is losing.
"We are aware that as a civilized nation, as a democracy, it is important for us to pursue this. Otherwise, in the international community, we are losing our reputation, which we don't want to happen in Taiwan."
The 34-member delegation of DPP and TSU legislators arrived Monday and will leave Washington today after an intensive round of meetings with US congressmen and officials.
In addition to meeting many of the roughly 116 members of the recently-formed Taiwan Caucus, the group had breakfast Tuesday with several State Department officials and were to be briefed yesterday by Pentagon officials on last week's Defense Department report on China's military capabilities and their potential threat to Taiwan.
Other issues expected to come up are the possibility of a Washington visit by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Taiwan's bid for observer status in the WHO, general cross-strait relations, WTO issues and prospects for a US-Taiwan free-trade agreement.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS