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Taipei Court on Friday convicted Kuro of criminal copyright
infringement, imposing a fine of NT$3 million (approximately
£50,000) on the firm for allowing subscribers to access digital
files stored in other users' computers that were mostly in breach
of copyright.
According to industry group the International Federation of
Phonographic Industries (IFPI), the files covered mostly local
music, but no royalties were paid to the artists or the record
labels.
Chen Kuo-hua and Chen Kuo-hsing, the brothers who ran Fashionow
Co Ltd, the company behind Kuro, were sentenced to three years
imprisonment each, while their father, Chen Shou-teng, who was
president of Kuro, was given a two-year jail sentence.
A user of the site, Chen Chia-hui, was also convicted of
uploading copyrighted material onto the service, according to the
Taipei Times. She has been given a suspended sentence of four
months in prison.
The judgment follows an earlier ruling by a Taiwanese court that
Kuro’s smaller rival Ezpeer.com was not guilty of criminal
copyright infringement for providing a similar file-swapping
service.
The difference in this case, according to the IDG News Service,
was that Kuro encouraged the copyright infringements through small
adverts on its website.
"This is good news for artists and the music industry,
particularly in Taiwan which has had a history of piracy problems.
Kuro has received a criminal conviction which sends a strong
message that profiteering from infringement will not be tolerated,”
said Lauri Rechardt, Director of Licensing and Litigation for
industry group the International Federation of Phonographic
Industries.
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