Taiwan’s Intellectual Property Office is proposing major revisions to the Copyright Act that will be sent to the Cabinet for review in March. Under the rules, those who own the rights to property can ask not-for-profit groups that use it to pay a royalty. The rules would also treat spoofs of other people’s videos as copyright violations. Several senior citizens are having a good time listening and dancing to old tunes. But they were not happy they might have to get authorization or even pay a fee to play the songs in the future. Chang Kan-tehRongxing Garden Park ChiefI bought the CD myself to listen and dance to. They still want to collect more money for it? I’m not in favor of that.Chang is worried because the Intellectual Property Office has proposed revisions that might require not-for-profit groups and for-profit shops to pay for the rights to use copyrighted songs.Wang Mei-huaIntellectual Property Office DirectorIf for-profit shops just play the radio, then there’s no problem. But if you put on a CD to make your shop more appealing, then you are infringing on the copyright holder’s public performance rights. Even popular Internet movies or animated parodies could also be in violation of the proposed rules, upsetting creators of Internet videos. Internet Video CreatorIn creating these videos, we are actually engaged in healthy exchanges because our fan groups, after seeing our products, know what the original film was and it gets them interested in going to see it.Intellectual Property Office Chief Wang Mei-hua said these parodies are controversial and not easily regulated by specific rules. The new law therefore will not set clear rules to cover them but instead have them judged on a case-by-case basis. Wang said if parodies are reasonably used and not posted to make a profit, they will be treated more leniently under the law.

• published: 17 Jan 2016
• views: 115