Newsletter
OPERATING P2P NETWORKS DOES NOT BREACH COPY-RIGHT ACT
Whether the operation of online peer-to-peer file sharing networks violates copyright laws has been highly controversial in practice. According to the judgment issued on 24 June 2005 in the case of Metro-Golden-Mayer Studios, Inc., et al. v. Grokster, Ltd., et al., the Supreme Court of the United States confirmed that such operators could be exposed to civil liability jointly and severally for their customers' unauthorized file exchanges.
However, only a few days later, on 30 June 2005, the Shihlin District Court found a similar Tai-wanese operator not guilty of criminal violations of the Copyright Act. The court found that the company had not itself publicly transmitted or reproduced copyright materials in ways re-stricted by the Copyright Act, and that the Copyright Act and other laws as currently in force did not restrict the operation of peer-to-peer file sharing networks, nor impose on their operators any duty to filter content. However, the court also stated that because the criteria for finding civil liability were different from those for criminal liability, the criminal court was not in a position to examine whether ezPeer might be liable for civil liability of in-fringement.
This district court judgment led to intense debate in Taiwan's legal community. On 1 July 2005, the Intellectual Property Office issued a press release, stating that it respected the court's judgment, but stressed that the court had explic-itly noted that public transmission or reproduc-tion of others' works on peer-to-peer networks may constitute copyright infringement.
As the judgment may still be appealed, we will continue monitoring the final outcome.