Techdirt. Stories filed under "taiwan"

Taiwan Supreme Court Says Porn Not Covered By Copyright

Tim Cushing — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 13:18:02 PDT

The awkward question of whether porn can be covered by copyright (and not much else, amirightgents?) has been debated a time or two on this side of the world. In 2011, some discussion revolved around the protection of "obscene materials," namely the protection extended to porn by the Fifth Circuit Court in a 1979 case involving a porn producer and a chain of adult theaters. This decision was cited in a lengthy footnote appended to a lawsuit filed by Liberty Media against 18 John Does.

In 2012, the argument was made that pornography doesn't "promote progress," therefore it should not be entitled to copyright protection. This particular argument is a rather dangerous one (and composed almost entirely of slope grease) as it puts the extension copyright protection in the hands of the court and allows it to determine whether a piece of erotica is art or "just porn." (The case was closed before this conversation could really get started.)

On the other side of the world, J apanese porn producers are finding themselves battling this very argument.

For years producers of porn movies in Japan have bemoaned the lack of protection their content has received in Taiwan.

In 2010 things came to a head. The leading producers of the 20,000+ adult movies released in Japan each year warned Taiwan that if it didn’t get tough on pirates selling their content on websites and even airing it on TV, legal action would follow.

These producers took their complaints to Taiwan's legal system and received this response.

Taiwan's prosecutors said Wednesday that Taiwanese firms that use Japanese-made pornographic films to make profits online have not violated Japanese producers' copyrights.

The Taipei District Court's Prosecutors Office therefore announced it will not press charges against Elta Technologies Co. Ltd, and 10 other Taiwanese firms that the Japanese studios accused of violating their copyrights.

Despite the producers' arguments that each film was unique and expressed singular artistic vision, prosecutors refused to budge, stating that Taiwan's Supreme Court affords copyright protection only to "works of literature, science and arts." According to the court, porn is not included, therefore it has no "copyright" to be infringed.

This disappointing decision prompting the Japanese porn producers to take another approach, and start calling the kettle black... for litigious reasons.

In a sign of how desperate they had become, the Japanese companies added that if they had no remedy under copyright law, they would sue the pirates for spreading obscene material and damaging the health of Taiwan’s children.

As crazy as it sounds this approach had the potential to work. While authorities have done nothing to protect copyrights of adult material, they do arrest people for distributing obscene material.

Ah, the "for the children" tactic. It's been used here before as justification for SOPA and various computer-snooping plans. This is a bit different, however, as it flips the script on the pirates, turning them from enemies of porn producers to enemies of the state. It's an approach that takes a very oblique angle, but when the usual stuff isn't working, it's time to bust out the "just-crazy-enough-to-work" options.

Unfortunately, it didn't work. (Not crazy enough??)

[T]he adult producer’s claims that the pirates were spreading obscene material and damaging children didn’t gain any ground either. The prosecutors decided that since the pirate sites displayed warnings and blocked minors from accessing their websites then there was no case to answer there either.

At this point, it looks as if Japan's porn producers are out of options, at least in terms of preventing piracy in Taiwan. The court tells them their work is too dirty to protect. They counter by saying their work is too dirty to distribute. The court says (paraphrasing) "It's ok, these sites are using protection." I doubt these producers really want to push the issue of having porn declared a protectable art form and leave the defining line between protectable art and unprotected obscenity in the hands (and minds) of government officials. Perhaps these producers should just concede the battle and focus on areas where they have the protection, or at least, paying customers.

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New Study Shows Patent Laws Spur Patents; Report's Authors Pretend This Means Innovation

Mike Masnick — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:57:00 PDT

Slashdot points us to an article about a new research report, commissioned by a biotech trade group that argues the evidence shows that patents spur innovation, rather than hinder it. However, as some quickly noticed, the report has severe methodological flaws, starting with the fact that it seems to use patent activity as a proxy for innovation. So, it argues that stronger patent law creates more patents (or more funding of patents or more sales/licensing of patents) -- and then claims that clearly there's more innovation. But we already knew that patent laws spur patents. The question -- not answered in the report -- is about the actual impact on innovation.

Just as an example, the report provides some case studies from different countries. In one of them, it talks about how Taiwan basically took the US' Bayh-Dole Act, which encourages the locking up of university research... and shows there was much more patenting afterwards. The report discusses how "impressive" this is:

A 2010 study of the effects of this legislation on university patenting activity provides a concrete and detailed example of the positive effect the introduction of technology transfer mechanisms can have. The study examines patents granted to 174 Taiwanese universities during the period of 2004 to 2009 and compares this to the period preceding it. Strikingly, the study finds a sharp and sustained increase in university’s patenting activity: patenting increased from 446 patents in 2004 to 1,581 by 2009. This is an impressive increase of 354%. As importantly, apart from a slight drop in 2007, this growth has been progressive and sustained year after year.

Yup. So patent laws that expand the coverage of what's patentable and provide incentives for more patents... increase the number patents. What does that say about innovation? Abso-freaking-lutely nothing. And, in fact, if you look at the actual research on the impact of Bayh-Dole in the US, while it similarly increased patent activity, it didn't increase research, and actually held it back. This is because university research is meant to be shared and meant to be discussed and to have others work on it. That's how great research is done: with lots of sharing of information and ideas to spark new thinking. But the Bayh-Dole Act basically told researchers to shut up, keep things secret, and patent the results. Because of that there are a lot more patents, but a lot fewer real breakthroughs, because you no longer have the same information sharing, discussion and openness that created true innovation in the past.

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Taiwan Denies Use Of 'Pirate Party' Name Because People Might Think They're Actual Sea-Faring Pirates

Mike Masnick — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 19:34:00 PDT

Last year, we wrote about how the Russian Pirate Party was refused recognition because officials there didn't like the name, stating that it "is an attack on sea or river craft, which is a criminal offense." Apparently, something similar has happened in Taiwan, where someone who sought to establish the Taiwanese Pirate Party has been denied, after being told that it is "improper" because of "bad connotations" with the word "piracy." So much for "taking back" the word. The guy, Tai Cheh actually fought this decision in court... and has still lost. According to TorrentFreak:

In its ruling, the High Administrative Court agreed with the Ministry of the Interior’s stance that the use of the word ‘Pirate’ did not accurately describe the true aims of the Party.

The MOI said that the term “pirate” could mislead members of the public into voting for people they believed to be real, sea-based pirates. The country’s Criminal Code outlaws acts of piracy, the MOI added.

Are they really concerned that the party will advocate sea-faring piracy?

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DailyDirt: Storing Up Energy For A Rainy Day...

Michael Ho — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:00:00 PDT

Battery technologies haven't quite achieved the same kind of Moore's Law progress as other kinds of electronics. Being able to store energy is still incredibly important, so there are plenty of projects trying to figure out better ways to store up electricity efficiently. No one has a complete solution, but here are some interesting attempts to manage energy-use fluctuations.

Google is saving on its power bills for a datacenter in Taiwan by storing up thermal energy in ice. Using a giant ice maker retro-fitted to the datacenter's AC systems, Google can store up energy at night and cool its operations during the day when electricity is more expensive. [url]
Beacon Power built a 20-megawatt energy storage system based on flywheels in 2011. Unfortunately, the company went bankrupt that same year, but the firm's assets have been acquired by private equity firm Rockland Capital. [url]
MIT professor, Donald Sadoway, has invented a huge battery for electrical power grids that can handle the huge loads -- and is designed to be "dirt" cheap. Sadoway quips, "We choose to work on gridlevel storage not because it is easy but because it is hard." [url]
To discover more stuff on alternative energy, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

As always, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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SOPA Gets Taiwanese News Animation Treatment

Mike Masnick — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:48:39 PST

Want to know when a bit of news has really hit the mainstream? It's when the Taiwanese company Next Media Animation does a computer generated animation of the story. These videos have become a media sensation. Guess what they just took on? Yup, the battle over SOPA, which they animate by showing Hollywood lobbyists seeking to attack the internet, and showing not only how tech companies teamed up to fight this, but that internet users are pushing back. Amusingly, they make use of the imagery from the UC Davis pepper spray incident to show how Hollywood and the government can "knock out" sites under SOPA.

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What A Waste: Taiwan Plans To Create A 'Patent Bank' To Protect Taiwanese Companies Against Patent Lawsuits

Mike Masnick — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:32:01 PDT

Tim Swanson was the first of a few of you to pass on the news that the Taiwanese government is planning to put together a "patent bank" that would basically seek to buy up patents around certain technologies, and local Taiwanese firms share in the patent pool and effectively check patents out to use against others if threatened. Of course, this is similar to the original pitch that Intellectual Ventures made... and also similar to the claims of companies like RPX which basically tried to recreate the Intellectual Ventures model. Of course, IV also went on the offensive, rather than just the defensive. And, as Stephan Kinsella has pointed out, all the patent banks in the world won't save you if you get sued by a non-practicing troll who is immune from return patent lawsuits. Really all this demonstrates is how ridiculous the patent system is, when governments (and the article notes that South Korea and Japan have similar things) have to create special institutions to protect their own companies from the patent system. Shouldn't that raise questions about the patent system itself?

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Be Careful What You Wish For: Taiwan Using US Pressured Patent Laws Against US Companies

Mike Masnick — Mon, 7 Mar 2011 02:48:57 PST

We already pointed out how, after years of pressure from the US, China was beginning to "respect" intellectual property laws, but was conveniently doing so in ways that harmed US companies, ruling in favor of Chinese company patents, and claiming US (and European) firms infringed. It appears that Taiwan is doing something similar. Jack Thompson points us to the news that, after being pressured heavily by the USTR to change its patent laws to get off the infamous "Special 301 Priority Watch List," Taiwan now appears to be using those new laws to hit back at American companies. In fact, Taiwan was pressured heavily by (there they are again!) the US Chamber of Commerce to set up a special "IP Court," with experts focused on intellectual property law. The Chamber of Commerce claimed this would "speed" trials along and promise "more consistent and professional" rulings. What it probably didn't count on was that most of those consistent and professional rulings would go against US companies. It's really stunning how the Chamber of Commerce can be so short-sighted. Its lobbying pressure hands foreign governments perfectly "legal" protectionist tools that they can use against the US companies the CoC is supposedly paid to represent. If I were a Chamber of Commerce member, I'd want my money back.

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Contest-Winning Poster To Promote Copyright Protection... Copied From Another Artist

Mike Masnick — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 11:22:00 PDT

Reader A alerts us to this amusing story out of Taiwan, where it turns out that a student who won a contest put on by the country's Intellectual Property Office, involving creating a poster to promote strong copyright protection, has been stripped of his prize after it was discovered that the poster was copied from a Dutch artist. The student has been ordered to return the approximately $1,600 he was awarded. What's not clear is if the student was really just pranking the Intellectual Property Office or what. Separately, there's this conundrum: if the Intellectual Property Office felt that a copied poster was the most successful in promoting respect of copyright, by taking away the prize are they actually harming their own case?

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US Government Working With Pharma Companies To Raise Drug Prices In Other Countries

Mike Masnick — Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:40:00 PST

A series of stories from Jamie Love at KEI highlight the troubling cozy relationship between pharmaceutical companies and the US government in trying to raise drug prices in other countries -- which very likely will come at the expense of the health of citizens in those countries. The first is about the USTR and its position that drugs in Taiwan are too cheap:

The United States has also continued to engage Taiwan on concerns raised by the pharmaceutical and medical device industries that Taiwan's procedures for medical product pricing and reimbursement fail to adequately recognize the value of innovative medical products for patients in Taiwan.

Read that again, because that's a pretty scary statement. Yes, Taiwan has worked hard to make sure that health care is affordable in that country, and the USTR is acting on behalf of corporate interests to tell them that's a mistake. Wow.

Then, over in India, it appears that the USPTO is putting on co-branded events with Pfizer about drugs, health care and patents. Along with this, Love points to growing concerns from folks in India about a project between George Washington University and various pharmaceutical companies to "train" Indian politicians and judges on the importance of patents in pharma. Except, of course, that's very much in dispute. Many studies have shown that patents on pharma do more harm than good -- especially in countries with big healthcare issues.

There are plenty of important issues to debate over health care and patents, but it seems quite troubling when the US seems to have pretty much let the pharmaceutical companies run the entire debate.

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Taiwan Regulators Tell Dell It Must Sell Mispriced Monitors At $15

Mike Masnick — Thu, 2 Jul 2009 04:51:53 PDT

Ever since e-commerce began there have been stories of mispriced items -- and following that, stories of the mad rush to buy the mispriced product (especially when it involves misplaced decimals, shrinking the price by orders of magnitude). In the US, at least, it's quite clear that such a mispricing need not be honored by the retailer, though public pressure often leads the retailer to offer something to those who tried to buy, just for the sake of PR. Given that, it's quite surprising to see Taiwan regulators tell Dell that it needs to honor the 140,000 monitors that were sold for about $15 each when they really were supposed to be $150. It's difficult to see how it makes sense to enforce the lower price. It was a clear mistake, and most of the orders were clearly only made due to the mistake.

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Taiwanese Collections Society Tells Singer He Can't Post His Own Music

Mike Masnick — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:12:00 PDT

William writes in with the following tale:

"The Taiwanese music performance and copy right society called MUST, which is similar to the PRS in Britian, has send a take down notice to a popular Taiwanese blog hosting site, Wretch, because one of the user has posted copyrighted music on their blog. The offending blog was taken down and contents deleted.

The catch on this is that the person who posted the music, Shia Ho Shen (English artist name: A Chord), posted music that he himself wrote and performed. He sent an email to MUST asking about the situation and received a standard form letter telling him that copyrighted material are protected intellectual property and implied that he has no right to authorize himself for posting his own material.

Apparently, A Chord's previous agency, without his consent, has signed him up with MUST and thus MUST has all right to authorize his content and collect fees -- and block him from posting his own music.

After this incident A Chord has started the process to remove himself from MUST's artist list, started a new blog and posted this whole incident and posted all his songs online at StreetVoice for fans to listen to before purchasing his CD.

The specific links he sent, including to the blog post itself, are in Mandarin. Here's the Google translation which isn't all that clear. Also this is from a little while ago, so I'm not sure if there's been any updates... but if folks out there have any updates, please fill us in via the comments.

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Taiwan Sorta, But Not Really, Approves Three Strikes Law

Mike Masnick — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:30:04 PDT

Billboard is noting that Taiwan has passed a "three strikes" law for ISPs to kick file sharers off the net -- except it's not clear that's really true. While that's what the headline says, the details sound a bit different. Taiwan did approve an amendment to copyright law, oddly "based on the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision against Grokster." Again, from the details provided, it sounds like it's based a lot more on the DMCA than the Grokster decision -- and nowhere is it explained why Taiwan would update its copyright law based on a US court case... The law sets up a notice-and-takedown provision (again, this is like the DMCA, not the Grokster case, which was about secondary liability), requiring ISPs to pass warnings on to users. Users are then able to file counter-notices.

What's not entirely clear, however, is how an ISP is supposed to "take down" content that is hosted on a user's own computer, or even how/why it should be responsible for what's on a user's computer. Instead, it seems more like the law just requires ISPs to pass on notices from copyright holders, and then has a three strikes provision where ISPs can restrict internet access. That doesn't sound mandatory, and it's not clear what the definition of "restrict" includes. It still doesn't make sense why ISPs would want to restrict their customers, but as long as the law isn't mandatory, then it hardly seems like a problem. ISPs have always had the ability to cut off users if they wanted to, so this hardly seems like a change.

The other interesting element of the new amendment is that:

ISPs are not automatically permitted to disclose the identity of individual copyright abusers. Only if an individual user submits a counter-request to restore content previously removed can their personal information be furnished to the rights holder.

At first, that may seem like a good thing. ISPs don't have to hand over private info on a mere accusation. It would be great if plenty of other countries followed that. But, what's troubling is the second part, whereby if a user files a counter-notice, their info can be given to the rights holder. That puts a massive liability on anyone if they wish to file a counter-notice, and will almost certainly create a massive chilling effect scaring most people in Taiwan from ever submitting a counter-notice, for fear of having their private info handed out. That means that copyright holders can have pretty free reign in demanding takedowns, knowing that most people won't bother filing counter-notices in order to protect their identity.

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Taiwan Declares File Sharing App Illegal

Mike Masnick — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:44:00 PDT

While everyone's been focused on The Pirate Bay trial in Sweden, who knew something similar was happening in Taiwan? Michael Scott points us to the news that a Taiwanese court has found the file sharing app Foxy to be illegal. There's not much in the way of details, other than to suggest that the company behind Foxy has shut down. The report also notes that some other file sharing services in Taiwan have been sued -- but one was "cleared of charges because it merely provided a way to transfer information, images, videos and text." Isn't that what most file sharing apps do?

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Chinese Going Off The Official Telco System To Call Taiwan

Mike Masnick — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:09:41 PDT

Paul Kedrosky points us to the news that, for the first time in 11 years, the "official" volume of phone calls from China to Taiwan has dropped rather significantly. Both the Digitimes report and Kedrosky suspect (reasonably) that this shows how many Chinese are jumping to use services like Skype to make these calls. Skype has long had a popular following in China, so this shouldn't be a huge surprise -- but it does make you wonder if the Chinese government will follow the path of various countries like Bangladesh, Belarus, Namibia and Jordan in banning Skype. We've already seen some experiments in China with blocking or banning certain types of calls. If the government feels that too many people are using these services, don't be surprised to see a wider ban enacted.

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