As the prevalence of Internet usage increases, there have been more and more cases of infringement and piracy through the Internet. Local IP right holders often struggle to exercise their rights against illegal activities and piracy websites, especially when the websites are registered abroad without Taiwan’s top-level domain “.tw”.
Due to the limitation of jurisdiction, when infringing websites having top-level domain names or other country code domain names set Taiwanese viewers as their targets, the Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC) simply has no substantive authorities over these sites. Even though Taiwan’s judiciary does usually rule in favor of the IP right holders in piracy crime cases, how to effectively and preemptively suppress the cyber infringers remains a challenging task.
In April 2020, Taiwan’s largest online pirate audio-visual platform “8maple.ru” was taken down by the police, which is truly heartening news to the local cultural and creative industries. Although registered in Russia, this platform was totally operated by Taiwanese through cloud server. Owing to the authorities’ excellent investigation skills, the platform operators were arrested and the server was seized in one sweep. For more details on this case, please refer to our previous report here.
Even more, in 2021, a new method of curbing piracy websites was introduced into the anti-piracy taskforce. In a case against eight Taiwanese-operated piracy websites all registered in other jurisdictions, the Taipei District Court, upon the prosecutor’s motion, issued a special Seizure Order (case number: 110 ShengKou No. 11). By the force of this Seizure Order, not only the prosecutors would be able to shut down these websites and seize their servers, they were also empowered to request the TWNIC to use the DNS respond policy zone technology (“DNS RPZ”) to block viewers in Taiwan from accessing these websites (through the help of local Internet Service Providers (ISPs)). This Seizure Order was upheld by the Taiwan Intellectual Property and Commercial Court (IPC Court) despite the defendants’ appeal.
This new method utilizing the DNS PRZ is different from that used in the “8maple.ru” where the cloud server was seized. While a seizure of a cloud server locks down the hideout, making the infringing resources available to nobody afterwards, it requires the police to locate the actual operator before anything else. In contrast, a DNS PRZ seizure can be performed without locating the actual operator; by ordering every intermediary to cut off the normal route to the hideout, this approach simply makes the piracy website inaccessible to all viewers in Taiwan. In this way, the piracy crimes can be preemptively deterred even before the operator is arrested.
Without the option of DNS PRZ seizure order, to shut down a Taiwanese-operated website registered abroad, Taiwanese police and prosecutors would need to seek legal assistance from foreign courts just in order to get the location information of the server. With the introduction of DNS PRZ seizure orders, much time can be saved, and the anti-piracy taskforce can better achieve the goal of preventing crimes or infringements from worsening.
However, in its decision upholding the DNS PRZ seizure order, the IPC Court still addressed the question of whether Taiwanese courts have jurisdiction over the eight websites registered abroad through foreign registrars. The IPC Court’s answer was in the affirmative. For one thing, the infringements stemming from these websites took place (at least partially) in Taiwan. For another, the police’s investigation confirmed that one of the websites’ operators was Taiwanese. Needless to say, the second part of the court’s rationale has cast a thin shadow over the prospect of DNS PRZ seizure orders. Would the IPC Court have still upheld the lower court’s DNS PRZ seizure order if the nationality of the operators of the piracy websites had been unknown? It remains to be seen how the court will address this issue in future cases.