IFPI Taiwan seeks NT$1 bil. for IPR violation

The Taichung branch of the Bureau of Investigation under the Ministry of Justice raided Li’s residence on Ta Duen Road, Taichung, on Wednesday and confiscated 22,282 Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean and English CDs, including 11,141 illegal ones having a total market value of around NT$200 million. Relevant servers and computer systems were also seized.

Investigators found that Li, 39, and three other accomplices, allegedly illegally downloaded popular songs from Kuro and EZpeer music Web sites, and then solicited members to access their Web site AVpeer through a P2P software program, by charging NT$99 per month or NT$500 half a year. The songs unloaded were mostly copyrighted by Rock Records (Taiwan) Co. Ltd., a member of the IFPI. Since AVpeer was launched in April 2005, the Web site has attracted over 1,000 members and has raked in income of over NT$1 million.

The 10 member firms of IFPI Taiwan also include Avex Taiwan Inc., EMI (Taiwan) Ltd., Forward Music Co. Ltd., HIM International Music Inc., Linfair Records Limited, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Taiwan) Ltd., Universal Music Ltd., Warner Music Taiwan and What’s Music International Inc.

The firms joined forces to file the accusation against AVpeer and demanded a compensation of NT$1 billion, although the songs illegally unloaded were mostly copyrighted by Rock Records. The move is designed to forestall recurrence of similar undesirable violations.

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