Operators of the largest video piracy website in Taiwan indicted for Copyright infringement

　Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office indicted two suspects, the founders of the most-visited video piracy streaming website in Taiwan, 8maple.ru, for violating the Copyright Act by reproducing, public transmitting, and public broadcasting unlawfully obtained copyrighted works.  The two suspects, Chen and Chuang worked with Chinese nationals and used offshore cloud hosting servers to download unauthorized movies, dramas and television series and offer them to online viewers or provide links to other websites free of charge.  Also, the two suspects gained revenue by requesting site visitors to click on ads before watching, and their more than TWD67 million worth of property from their illegal dealings has been frozen.  

　By operating the said video piracy platform, Chen and Chuang infringed the audiovisual works, including 107 Taiwanese dramas, 64 American dramas, 60 Japanese dramas, and 144 movies from Taiwan and abroad, for which the infringed copyright holders, including CK TV, Sanlih E-Television, Fuji Television Network, Inc, Cai Chang International Inc., and Warner Bros. have collected evidence to bring a lawsuit against the two suspects.  The estimated value involved in this alleged IP infringement is estimated to be closed to TWD1 billion.  

　In order to seek payment of the revenues from the two suspects’ illegal dealings and to secure plaintiffs’ recovery of their losses, the prosecutor moved for having Chen’s and Chuang’s illegal gains and real estate seized.  (Released 2020.11.09)