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CALLIGRAPHIC CHINESE CHAR-ACTERS ARE COPYRIGHTABLE WORKS
The issue of whether calligraphic Chinese char-acters are works that can enjoy copyright pro-tection under the Copyright Act has been heat-edly debated in legal practice.
In a 2006 case, the Taichung branch of the Tai-wan High Court held that the characters in the phrase "燒烤飯糰" (shaokao fantuan— "bar-becue rice balls") had been written with a cal-ligraphy brush and were creative in that the characters shao and kao had been written with pictographic representations of fire, while the character tuan was written with a semicircular motif; these features were sufficient to express the author's unique calligraphic style, and were thus creative in nature and could be the subject of copyright.
The Taichung District Court took the same view in a 2006 civil judgment and held that calli-graphic writing of the phrase "shaokao fantuan" could be the subject of copyright, and that the infringer was liable for damages.