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