VZCZCXRO7688
PP RUEHCN RUEHGH RUEHVC
DE RUEHIN #1039/01 1972222
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 152222Z JUL 08
FM AIT TAIPEI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9510
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
RUEHBK/AMEMBASSY BANGKOK 4288
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 4964
RUEHML/AMEMBASSY MANILA 0550
RUEHGP/AMEMBASSY SINGAPORE 7372
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 0082
RUEHWL/AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON 2179
RUEHCHI/AMCONSUL CHIANG MAI 0455
RUEHHM/AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY 0297
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON DC
RHMFIUU/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHINGTON DC
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 001039
SIPDIS
STATE FOR EAP/TC
STATE PASS USTR FOR KATZ AND RAGLAND, COMMERCE FOR
4431/ITA/MAC/AP/OPB/TAIWAN, COMMERCE ALSO FOR ITA/MAC/OIPR,
COMMERCE PASS TO USPTO GIN, BROWNING,AND LOC STEPP,USDOJ
FOR JOHN ZACHARIA
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECON ETRD KIPR PREL PGOV TW
SUBJECT: TAIWAN IPR: 301 WATCH LIST OCR PROCESS UPDATE TWO
REF: A. SECSTATE 43143
B. TAIPEI 950
C. TAIPEI 745
TAIPEI 00001039 001.2 OF 002
1. (SBU) Summary: Due in part to a recent compromise between
local rights-holder groups and the Taiwan Intellectual
Property Office (TIPO) on draft language for internet service
provider (ISP) amendments to Taiwan's Copyright Act, Taiwan
is now making progress on all three areas outlined in May's
Special 301 Watch List submission for Taiwan (ref A). TIPO
continues to predict that it will pass the final draft of the
amendment to the Executive Yuan (EY) in August at the
earliest, though September is now a possibility. The Ministry
of Education (MOE) continues to engage with rights-holder
groups, and may consider their request that the MOE allow the
Taiwan authorities to treat the Ministry's island-wide TANet
system as an ISP under the Taiwan Copyright Act. As reported
in reftel B, the Intellectual Property (IP) Court opened as
scheduled on July 1. End summary.
------------------------------
Compromise Reached on ISP Bill
------------------------------
2. (SBU) The original version of the draft ISP amendment
included language in Article 88 explicitly stating that ISP
operators could be subject to secondary liability for hosting
IP-infringing material. Rights-holder groups were happy with
this language, which they saw as necessary to give the
proposed legislation teeth, but ISP operators had objected,
and their objections were delaying progress on finalizing the
draft amendment (ref C). In response to a May 26 request by
the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), on July 4, the
Ministry of Justice (MOJ) formally submitted a written
opinion stating that ISP operators are subject to secondary
liability ("contributory infringement") under Article 185 of
the Taiwan Civil Code, and that language related to secondary
liability in Article 88 was therefore not necessary. As
expected, TIPO used the MOJ opinion to justify deleting the
concept of secondary liability from Article 88.
3. (SBU) On July 7, TIPO Copyright Department Director Chang
Yu-ying met with ISP operators, rights-owner groups, and
other experts to hear their opinions about this new version
of proposed ISP-related amendments to the Copyright Act. At
the meeting--and despite earlier rights-holder opposition to
ISP attempts to remove Article 88 from the
draft--rights-holder groups did not object to the new
language. According to our local rights-holder contacts,
they dropped their opposition after an earlier, private
meeting with TIPO Deputy Director Margaret Chen, during which
the groups agreed to accept the new version in exchange for
several other changes favorable to rights-holders. These
changes include stricter notification requirements, as well
as language requesting ISPs to use rights-holder-provided
content-filtering mechanisms. According to Robin Lee, CEO of
the recording-industry rights-holder group IFPI,
rights-holder groups are also confident that after TIPO
submits the bill to the LY, KMT Legislator Hseih Kuo-liang
will add language related to secondary liability back into
the amendment.
--------------------------------
MOE Campus Action Plan Continues
--------------------------------
4. (SBU) During a July 10 meeting with Economic Chief,
Ministry of Education Computer Center Director Yang
Cheng-hong noted that his office met in the spring with
eleven representatives of the Taiwan Intellectual Property
Association (TIPA) and promised to review their suspected
copyright infringement cases regarding the Taiwan Academic
Network (TAnet), for which the Computer Center is
responsible. Yang added that later this month his office
will counsel ten universities that have recorded increasing
numbers of TAnet infringements.
TAIPEI 00001039 002.2 OF 002
5. (SBU) During the same meeting, Vice Minister of Education
Lu Mu-lin reported that implementation of the Campus Action
Plan is going well, and that the MOE will share updated
enforcement statistics with AIT in the near future. Lu
mentioned that MOE will soon strengthen the standard IP
questionnaire students must complete before initial access to
TAnet. In response to rights-holder requests and AIT advocacy
in favor of including TAnet in draft ISP legislation, Lu said
the MOE is now preparing draft language for interagency
discussion that would clarify that TANet should be covered
under the proposed ISP amendments, though he acknowledged
opposition within the MOE may derail such a change.
6. (SBU) Comment: In anticipation of an eventual out-of-cycle
review, we assess that Taiwan has made measurable progress on
the three key areas outlined by the U.S. in this year's
Special 301 Watch List submission for Taiwan. We will be
watching to see how effectively the new IP Court handles
cases, and we will continue to monitor Taiwan's
implementation of its Campus IP Action Plan. The main issue
will now be Taiwan's progress toward passing an acceptable
version of the ISP amendment, and though rights-holders
appear satisfied with the current language, we will continue
to follow its progress from TIPO to the EY and LY.
YOUNG