SAINT ISLAND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY GROUP

After undergoing three readings by the Legislative Yuan, the new Amendment to Taiwan’s Copyright Law has taken effect since January 2014. The new law expands the right of reasonable use of copyrighted works.

The old Copyright Law merely allowed for reproduction of copyrighted works by legally established non-profit organizations or groups without permission of copyright holders. The new law now stipulates that local and central government agencies, non-profit organizations or groups, registered schools of all levels, and the disabled or their guardians are all permitted to reproduce copyrighted works without permission of copyright holders.

The old law allowed distribution of works reproduced without permission of copyright holders to the disabled only. To foster sharing of copyrighted works in accessible formats and avoid waste of resources, the new law now allows for distribution or public transmission of the reproduced works among the disabled, local and central government agencies, non-profit organizations or groups, and legally established schools of all levels.

For the purpose of expanding the right of reasonable use of copyrighted works by the disabled, the new law makes lawful the circumvention of measures adopted by copyright holders to prevent or limit access to their works, and the manufacture, import, offering for use by the public or offering in services to the public of equipment, devices, components, technology or information relating to such circumvention. It also provides an exception to allow parallel import of accessible versions of copyrighted works from other countries for reasonable use by the disabled.