Dutch conceptual artist Florentijn Hofman intended to bring joy to the world when he first unveiled his oversized rubber duck sculpture in 2007. He hoped the giant inflatable bathroom toy would conjure up spectators’ childhood memories.
As it already had in cities and countries around the world, the Rubber Duck project created a buzz when it came to Taiwan.
However, in an unexpected twist, the duck’s arrival triggered an intellectual property rights row, with event organizer the Keelung City Government taking advantage of Hofman’s popular inflatable sculpture by selling unauthorized yellow duck-themed products.
It is a sham and a disastrous turn of events for Taiwan that this artistic display has been spoiled and turned into a farce.
Disputes arose between the artist and event organizers as all kinds of unauthorized rubber ducks were put on sale before the arrival of the gigantic Rubber Duck in Keelung Harbor. These ugly, cheap ducks ruffled Hofman’s feathers. He claimed his copyright had been infringed by the organizers and he considered lodging a lawsuit against the Keelung City Government and former event planner Jerry Fan (范可欽).
The Taiwan Smart Card Corp also allegedly infringed the copyright by issuing duck-themed stored-value cards.
In addition to the sale of counterfeit rubber duck-themed products, the Keelung City Government also sold tickets for two newly established yellow duck exhibition halls, which totally contradicts Hofman’s vision of bringing people happiness by floating the giant yellow duck around the world. The artistic effect envisioned by Hofman has been completely ignored.
With these commercial activities surrounding Keelung harbor, where the Rubber Duck is stationed, it is almost impossible for anyone to feel the tranquility and simplicity the sculpture was intended to evoke.
To show his strong disapproval of the local government’s activities, Hofman refused to attend a ceremony marking the arrival of the duck. Hofman called the whole thing a “commercial circus.”
In a ridiculous defense of his actions, Fan said there had been no violation of intellectual property rights as the iconic yellow rubber duck is the common property of all mankind and does not belong to any individual. Fan quit his job because of the controversy.
The dispute to some extent reflects weak awareness of intellectual property rights violation in Taiwan and indicates that public eduction should be stepped up.
What makes the situation worse is that the Keelung City Government originally planned to install a mechanism to rotate the sculpture through a full 360 degrees. The idea was dropped following Hofman’s disapproval, but the incident showed the government’s lack of taste and respect for pop culture.
In recent years, Taiwan has made constant efforts to lose its notorious reputation for making illegal replicas by stepping up intellectual property protection regulations and cracking down on those who break them. The country has achieved considerable success in this regard and in 2009 it was removed from the US Trade Representative’s Special 301 Report of countries with insufficient intellectual property rights protection.
Do not let the country’s efforts to protect intellectual property rights be in vain. Stop buying and selling cheap knockoffs of the Rubber Duck.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS