Effect of Taiwan’s entry to WTO making Japan-based manufacturers launch raid actions against pirated games

Sellers of pirated videogames had better watch out.  Following Taiwan’s entry into the WTO, the protection of Japanese copyrighted works becomes more perfect.  Japan-based manufacturers, such as Sega and Sony, have entrusted their attorneys to strengthen the raid against pirated games.  The scope of raid will be retroactive to past piracy activities.

In the past, Taiwan only granted copyright protection to the Japanese works which were published in Taiwan within 30 days after their first publication in Japan, while those failed to be published in Taiwan within 30 days after their first publication in Japan were exempted from the copyright protection.  As a result, certain dealers took advantage of deficiencies in laws and, therefore, caused great loss to copyright owners.

However, under some specific circumstances, manufacturers reproducing Japanese works without license still deserve a grace period of two years.