The thesis plagiarism allegations against Kaohsiung City Councilor Jane Lee (李眉蓁), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) candidate in the Kaohsiung mayoral by-election, has caused an uproar. It has also raised allegations of potential breaches of ethics in connection to the master’s theses or doctoral dissertations of some other politicians.
Should the ambiguous Copyright Act (著作權法) make it mandatory for students to make their theses or dissertations publicly available? This is an issue that should be openly discussed.
Article 15 of the act states that “the author of a work shall enjoy the right to publicly release it.”
For the sake of academic dissemination and public review, those earning a master’s degree or doctorate are “presumed” to have given their consent unless they explicitly request that it not be made public.
The Ministry of Education has told all universities to make theses and dissertations publicly available, but students, citing the act, often refuse to allow their works to be released.
On my recommendation, the ministry in 2011 amended the Copyright Act and the Degree Conferral Act (學位授予法) to coordinate the regulations.
When the Executive Yuan submitted the draft Degree Conferral Act amendment to the Legislative Yuan for review, the draft did not mention making it mandatory for students to make their thesis or dissertation public.
On my suggestion, then-KMT legislator Ko Chih-en (柯志恩) proposed adding a paragraph to Article 16 of the draft, which was passed in 2018. It dictates that students obtaining a graduate degree must give a copy of their thesis or dissertation to the National Central Library and their university library for storage.
The copy at the National Central Library should be made available to the public unless “the content involves confidential information, patent matters or is not permitted to be provided on statutory grounds and this has been confirmed by the university,” in which case “the person is permitted to not provide a copy or public access and the material in question will be placed under embargo for a certain period.”
A regulation that allows students not to make their thesis or dissertation public makes no sense.
Generally, authors should not leak any such information in academic papers, so how could it be included and cited as a reason for keeping their work from public review?
The amendment to the Degree Conferral Act did not provide a fundamental solution to the problem. Although it allowed the National Central Library to make copies of theses and dissertations public within its confines without infringing upon an author’s “right of disclosure,” members of the public still cannot see the works unless they visit the library in person.
If a university or an individual discloses the content of someone else’s thesis or dissertation, it would still be an infringement of the author’s right of disclosure, which is protected by the Copyright Act. This is absurd and baffling.
The ultimate solution to this problem is to amend the Copyright Act article that says that the author is “presumed” to have consented to the public release of their work, changing the word “presumed” to “deemed.”
Doing so would lift the long-standing dark cloud over Taiwan’s academic ethics, and thesis plagiarists would have no place to hide.
Are Taiwanese lawmakers willing to amend the Copyright Act to make their theses and dissertations public?
Chang Chung-hsin is an assistant professor at Soochow University’s School of Law.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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