Three-Year Imprisonment Sentenced to the Two Pirates Involved with 70,000 Pirated CDs

INTELLECTUL PROPERTY OFFICE 
February 12, 2003

According to a report on China Times, two persons involved with some 70,000 pirated CDs were found to be in violation of the Copyright Law and sentenced to the maximum penalty of 3-year imprisonment, the heaviest punishment given in recent years, by the Taipei District Court. 

The judge considered the amount of the illegal reproduction huge, and sentenced heavy punishment for the convicts for violating Paragraph 1, Article 91 of the Copyright Law the crime of copyright infringement by unauthorized reproduction. 

Many judges considered comments from Minister Chen Ding-nan of the Ministry of Justice regarding lenient punishment for pirates a result from inadequate information of the Ministry. The severe penalty given of this case given in late January should revoke the opinion of lenient punishment for IPR infringement cases.

Huang Yi-hsiung, who was in the business of software production for video game cassette, was alleged to have consigned a friend, Chen Zhong-zon, to produce some 70,000 pirated CDs of the Beatles and other western music albums. Huang Siou-zhe, another defendant of the same case, was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

The decision indicates that from 1998 July and August, Huang has consigned Chen, who was working as a salesperson at E-ten Corporation, to reproduce, at the price of NT$10 per piece, the Beatles album and other western music albums. These music albums are produced by E-ten Corporation, however, the copyright belong to Warner Music International Corporated Company, Universal Music International Corporated Company (Taiwan), EMI (Taiwan) Limited, and What's Music International Incorporated. Manager Huang Siou-zhe of the Optical Disc Division of E-ten Corporation has approved such shipments without any proof of authorization. 

On 24 September 1998, the Panama customs authority has stopped the air cargo of 78,000 pirated CDs from Taiwan. Relevant Taiwan government agencies were notified and the case was forwarded to the Investigation Bureau for prosecution.

The District Court judge ruled that Huang should have a better concept of copyright than the general public since he was in the game software business, but despite that Huang infringed the copyright law by illegally reproducing at a large scale, therefore a heavy punishment was given.