Chinese over-the-top (OTT) service provider iQiyi cannot register as a provider in Taiwan after the Mainland Affairs Council declared it to be an illegal service, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.
Both iQiyi and WeTV were deemed to be illegal Chinese OTT operators in an interdepartmental meeting on Friday last week, officials said, adding that this prohibits them from marketing their services in Taiwan or seeking subscribers.
The government plans to block a local server that iQiyi has been using to transmit content to domestic audiences, which would disrupt its content transmission.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
OTT Entertainment Ltd, which is enlisted by iQiyi to handle subscription-related affairs in Taiwan, on Monday said that its local service platform does not disseminate political content, adding that it has invested more than NT$1 billion (US$33.38 million) in content production.
NCC spokesman Hsiao Chi-hung (蕭祈宏) said that the council decided that iQiyi breached the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by offering an OTT TV service, which the act does not permit Chinese to invest in.
Taiwanese OTT operators are not allowed to launch such services in China, he added.
A commission draft act on OTT TV services would require all legal OTT operators to register with the commission, although iQiyi is no longer a legal operator, he said.
Commission officials said that iQiyi’s Taipei office was set up under a company legally registered with the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Qiyi.com Hong Kong Ltd.
The company streams content over a server that it leases from a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based global content delivery network, Akamai Technologies, whose clients include YouTube and Netflix, they said, adding that tackling the issue would be difficult from a technical perspective.
To resolve the controversies surrounding iQiyi, Hsiao said that the council would need to amend the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area so that investments from Hong Kong and China are equated if related, something used to revoke iQiyi’s business registration in the nation.
Also, the ministry would need to amend regulations so that Taiwanese companies would be banned from offering prohibited services in Taiwan, as such a change is needed so that Akamai could drop iQiyi as a client, Hsiao added.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
Prosecutors today declined to say who was questioned regarding alleged forgery on petitions to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, after Chinese-language media earlier reported that members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Youth League were brought in for questioning. The Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau confirmed that two people had been questioned, but did not disclose any further information about the ongoing investigation. KMT Youth League members Lee Hsiao-liang (李孝亮) and Liu Szu-yin (劉思吟) — who are leading the effort to recall DPP caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Legislator Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) — both posted on Facebook saying: “I
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has fined Taobao NT$1.2 million (US$36,912) for advertisements that exceed its approved business scope, requiring the Chinese e-commerce platform to make corrections in the first half of this year or its license may be revoked. Lawmakers have called for stricter enforcement of Chinese e-commerce platforms and measures to prevent China from laundering its goods through Taiwan in response to US President Donald Trump’s heavy tariffs on China. The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee met today to discuss policies to prevent China from dumping goods in Taiwan, inviting government agencies to report. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kuo Kuo-wen (郭國文) said
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has fined Taobao NT$1.2 million (US$36,900) for advertisements that exceeded its approved business scope and ordered the Chinese e-commerce platform to make corrections in the first half of this year or its license would be revoked. Lawmakers have called for stricter supervision of Chinese e-commerce platforms and more stringent measures to prevent China from laundering its goods through Taiwan as US President Donald Trump’s administration cracks down on origin laundering. The legislature’s Finance Committee yesterday met to discuss policies to prevent China from dumping goods in Taiwan, inviting government agencies to report on the matter. Democratic Progressive Party
RSS