The two-year case against the distributors of Kuro, Taiwan’s most popular peer-to-peer (P2P) software, ended yesterday with unprecedented prison sentences for its distributors and one of its users.
"Kuro violated copyright law by offering members software with which to download MP3 music," said Liu Shou-sun, a spokesperson for the Taipei District Court which heard the case.
While the court neglected to adjudicate the legality of P2P software, it found Kuro responsible for encouraging its members to illegally trade copyrighted content through advertising.
In addition to NT$300,000 fines for each of its top three executives, chairman Chen Shou-teng received a sentence of two years in prison while CEO James Chen and general manager Victor Chen were each sentenced to three years.
The court also handed down a four-month prison term to Chen Chia-hui, a member that used Kuro to download more than 900 songs, likely setting an explosive example for Kuro’s other estimated 500,000 users.
Ruby Hsu, an attorney who represented IFPI in the Kuro lawsuit, said that the judgment brings Taiwan up to international judicial standards.
"This verdict follows international cases such as those against Kazaa and Grokster," Hsu said, referring to recent court judgments against the two major P2P providers in Australia and the U.S. "The foreign courts have decided that if you offer a P2P service and you know a high percentage of the songs that are traded are copyrighted, you have to take responsibility."
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