The Criminal Investigation Bureau has shut down what was reportedly the nation’s top video piracy Web site, 8maple.ru (楓林網), and arrested its two alleged proprietors in Taoyuan.
Authorities estimated that the site had infringed on NT$1 billion (US$33.2 million) in copyrights owned by the movie and TV industries.
The crackdown was the result of international cooperation with the US’ Motion Picture Association, Japan’s Content Overseas Distribution Association, and local TV networks initiating probes and providing authorities with evidence of illegal downloads, bureau officials said.
Photo copied by Chiu Chun-fu, Taipei Times
The site allowed users to download movies and TV shows from Taiwan, China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the US and Europe for free, Telecommunications Investigation Corps section head Chen Juei-chin (陳瑞金) told a media briefing.
“The site was in 2014 started in Taiwan by the two suspects, who have the expertise as they are software engineers,” Chen said. “They made about NT$2 million in monthly revenue from business and service company ads on the site.”
At the start, the two men promoted the site as an online commercial advertising service, but soon turned it into a video piracy site, for which they paid a total of NT$300,000 monthly for 25 servers in five countries — the US, Canada, Ukraine, France and Romania — to avoid investigation and prosecution by Taiwanese authorities, Chen added.
A bureau investigation found that monthly downloads from the site reached about 30 million, while the proprietors made about NT$4 million in advertising revenue.
The site was reportedly Taiwan’s top site for downloading movies and TV shows for free, and was also popular with people in China and other countries, becoming a prominent international piracy site.
The two suspects, surnamed Chen (陳), 33, and Chuang (莊), 32, are friends who were in the same software engineering program and graduated at the top of their class, for which they received scholarships for graduate studies at National Taiwan University, bureau officials said.
Investigators found that the two men had purchased two luxury mansions in Taoyuan, allegedly using their illegal profits from running the site to each pay NT$16 million in cash for the properties.
After weeks of surveillance and collecting evidence, the bureau coordinated with Taoyuan prosecutors and local police to conduct the raid at the end of last month, leading to the arrests of the two suspects, as well as the seizure of their properties and NT$60 million in their bank accounts, bureau officials said.
The officials quoted the two as saying that they started the site because they are both fans of TV dramas and foreign movies, so they decided to put their software expertise to good use in the name of entertainment and profit.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS