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August 30, 04
Taiwan's legislature has passed an amendment to the Copyright Act
that will protect digital content products including audio books,
compact-disc music and Internet movies from being copied and unraveled
without licensing. The approval of this amendment marks a major improvement
of of Taiwan's environment for copyrights and is advantageous for
the nation to comply with the world trend of preserving intellectual
property.
Taiwan's premier Yu Shyi-kung stressed that his government
has spared no efforts to amend the Copyright Act by adding more
countermeasures against illegal copy practices to the law and will
draft a three-year plan to fulfill protection of other intellectual
properties as well.
The amended law spells out that any unauthorized
reproduction will be sentenced into a maximum of three years in
prison ad any circulation intent will be punished with jail sentences
ranging from six months to five years. The ruling overrides an original
regulation that "making money with absent intent was not punishable
if the circulation copies were numbered under five and valued at
under the equivalent of US$ 882.
The law deals with different infringement grades,
spelling out combinations of short term jail sentences with accompanying
fines from US$ 588 to US$ 7,300.
The passage of the amendment, as industry watchers
in Taiwan analyzed, may help the signature of free trade agreements
between Taiwan and the United States as most of the revised articles
are in line with U.S. concerns and expectations.
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