TIPO Publishes the draft amendments to the Copyright Act on January 30, 2020

To make Taiwan’s copyright laws more comprehensive, TIPO decided to propose draft amendments to the Copyright Act in terms of the major issues that can affect the public deeply. In total, 32 articles were amended, 5 articles were added, and three articles were deleted. The points to the amendments are as follows:

1. In response to recent technological development, TIPO amended the definition for public broadcasting and public transmission, and added the right to simultaneousfurther to the public.

2. TIPO discussed who should enjoy the copyright and whether this would be reasonable. TIPO also amended the person(s) to enjoy the economic right in a contract between an employer and an employee. , it amended the legal relationship between the and the , so that no matter the is a natural or juristic person, the must serve as the author according to the contract between the two parties, thereby meeting the actual needs.

3. To facilitate the circulation and use of works, TIPO amended the rules for moral rights. It excluded the performer’s right to public release his or her work, and also amended the definition for public release.

4. TIPO amended the definition for the fair use of the limitations on economic rights, including the fair use of long-distance courses of schools and that of browsing through texts online of libraries under certain conditions. TIPO also amended the fair use of a work for not-for-profit activities – the organizer of a regular, not-for-profit activity may use the work upon a fair amount of remuneration, without having to acquire the of the rights holder. As to people who play music with their own devices for dancing in a park, no licensing or payment is needed.

5. About amending the rules for compensation for damages:

• Amendments were made to the rules of the burden of proof for claiming compensation. The injured party may ask the court to set a compensation amount between NT$10,000 and NT$1 million depending on the details of damages.

• According to the amendments, the injured party may choose to claim compensation for damages his or her licensing fee. This shall encourage the injured party to accept civil compensation instead of criminal litigation.

6. About amending outdated rules for criminal liability:

• Delete minimum imprisonment of six months for some minor infringement of copyright. The court may set the details of the punishment according to the cases, so as to avoid over-punishment.

• The persons who sell authentic goods imported from overseas in Taiwan without authorization will not be bound by criminal liability anymore.

• Delete the criminal punishment for distributing authentic goods, for which civil remedy is available under current Act. This shall set it apart from the liability for distributing counterfeit goods.

For more information (in Mandarin), please visit:

A general description to the draft amendments to the Copyright Act

A comparison table of the current and the amended Copyright Act in draft