MOEA's draft amendment to Copyright Law: aggravated punishment on chronic offenders

   The CD piracy has always been widespread in Taiwan.  Recently, it even hinders the progress of the signing of the US-Taiwan free trade agreement.  To deter such rampant piracy behavior, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has prepared a draft amendment to the Copyright Law, in which the monetary fines on pirates have been greatly increased.  In the future, people who make illegal copies of CDs and are chronic offenders may be fined a maximum fine of NT$8 million, in addition to imprisonment of not more than seven years but no less than one year.  The monetary fine imposable on sellers of pirated CDs has also been raised to NT$3 million from NT$300,000.   

Translated by Jem Chung