Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Taiwan's Three Strikes Sanction Less Strict Than French Equivalent

In the rebound the French Assemblée national adopted the Hadopi law today, which includes a "three strikes" sanction for file sharers of pirated works: repeat offenders will have their internet connection cut off after the third offense, see the France24.fr video about it here (in French) or here (in English). Besides France, Taiwan's Executive Yuan has proposed an amendment to its Copyright Law (ISP liability limitation bill) which includes this three strikes sanction. The bill completed the third reading by the Legislative Yuan and will be promulgated by the Presidential Office in the near future. ISPs will be exempt from both civil liability in case of alleged copyright infringement to the copyright owner and contractual liability to the alleged user. The price for this exemption is that ISPs should abide the notice-and-take down procedures for alleged infringing content and apply the three strikes system. 

However, the Taiwanese version of the three strike system seems at first sight less strict than its French equivalent: 

Margaret Chen, Deputy Director General of Taiwan's Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) said to reporters: ".., there are lots of ways to restrict Internet access besides cutting it off entirely." Read blog about it by Ben Challis at  'At last ...the 1709 Copyright Blog'. 

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