A Taiwanese YouTuber and an accomplice last month were ordered by the New Taipei City District Court to pay NT$500,000 (US$16,289) to a female YouTube personality for creating pornographic videos doctored to use her likeness, which the creators sold online.
The decision follows orders to pay two other victims of their work, but can be appealed.
Chu Yu-chen (朱玉宸), 27, who goes by Xiaoyu (小玉) on YouTube, was arrested in October 2021 for creating and selling “deepfake” pornographic videos of 119 people, including politicians and influencers, made with the assistance of Chuang Hsin-jui (莊炘睿) between July 2020 and October 2021. The videos reportedly earned the creators more than NT$13 million.
The victims included Kaohsiung City Councilor Huang Jie (黃捷), Legislator Kao Chia-yu (高嘉瑜) and social media influencer Ili Cheng (鄭家純), prosecutors said.
In July 2022, the district court sentenced Chu to five years and six months, and Chuang to three years and eight months in prison for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法施行細則), with the sentences commutable to fines.
New Taipei City prosecutors appealed the ruling, saying the sentences were too lenient.
Meanwhile, 21 victims of Chu and Chuang’s deepfake videos filed civil lawsuits seeking financial compensation for misuse of their likenesses.
The district court on Dec. 12 last year ordered Chu and Chuang to pay two victims NT$1 million each — Huang and an unidentified female flight attendant.
Another victim, a female YouTuber, also sought compensation of NT$1 million from Chu and Chuang, claiming that they earned more than NT$13 million through the sale of videos using her likeness, and harmed her reputation.
Although Chu agreed that the videos were obscene and intended for profit, he said he did not intend to harm their reputations.
The dissemination of the videos was limited to registered members of Chu’s YouTube channel who knew that the videos were not authentic, Chu said.
Chuang agreed that he and Chu should pay restitution to the female YouTuber, but requested that the compensation be reduced to NT$500,000, for which the woman settled on Dec. 27 last year, the court said.
The court found that placing the face of the victim on the body of a porn actress for people to watch in doctored videos seriously undermined the female YouTuber’s reputation.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
A rally held by opposition parties yesterday demonstrates that Taiwan is a democratic country, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that if opposition parties really want to fight dictatorship, they should fight it on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held a protest with the theme “against green communists and dictatorship,” and was joined by the Taiwan People’s Party. Lai said the opposition parties are against what they called the “green communists,” but do not fight against the “Chinese communists,” adding that if they really want to fight dictatorship, they should go to the right place and face
RSS