Project for amendments to the Copyright Law made; scope of public prosecution expanded
E020722Y3 Aug. 2002（E36）
At the Executive Yuan’s request for “expanding the scope of public prosecution and increasing criminal liability,” the Ministry of Economic Affairs made the project for amendments to the Copyright Law. According to the project, the amounts for civil compensation are increased and the applicable scope of offenses subject to public prosecution is expanded. Additionally, the vague concepts such as “the purpose of making profits” and “the business scale” etc. are used as the basis to give criminal punishments. However, scholars have questioned about whether these rules conform to the demands of Internet and characteristics of digitalization.
It is ruled in the project that there are two types of criminal liability for copyright infringement in respect of reproduction according to the infringement scale. One is the infringement of another person’s copyright by reproduction “for the purpose of making profits” or “not for the purpose of making profits” but “on the business scale.” In the future, the aforesaid two acts will both be subject to a prison term of not more than five years, detention, and/or a fine of not more than NT$500,000. The other type is the infringement of copyright on a large scale. A person who makes copyright infringement an occupation shall be punished with a prison term of not less than one year but not more than seven years, and may be fined not more than NT$1,000,000.
According to the rules specified in the project, this country will become the country that provides the 3rd severest criminal punishments in respect of the Copyright Law in the world, following after the Mainland China and Indonesia.
Source: Commercial Times 07/22/2002
