Lawmakers yesterday urged people to watch the Olympic Games on legal streaming services only, and condemned former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) and other public figures who have allegedly been viewing pirated programming on illegal streaming devices.
The government must clamp down on such practices and implement stricter controls on illegal streaming devices, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers and Taiwan Statebuilding Party Legislator Chen Po-wei (陳柏惟) told a media briefing in Taipei.
“It is tough to invest in and operate businesses related to the sports industry in Taiwan. People watch pirated programs by downloading them illegally and affect the revenues of companies that were willing to pay for authorized licensing and legal content,” DPP Legislator Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said, adding that those companies could stop investing in Taiwan.
Photo: CNA
That was what happened to Fox Sports, as it terminated its three sports channels in Taiwan at end of last year due to the prevalence of illegal streaming, Chuang said.
“Illegal streaming causes a vicious cycle. With no new investment coming in, Taiwan’s sports programming market shrinks year after year... It is a big loss for Taiwan’s viewers, who are left with dwindling choices,” he said.
The issue attracted public attention after P.League+ chief executive officer Chen Chien-chou (陳建州) and Chu were accused of watching Olympic broadcasts using illicit streaming devices at their homes.
Chu and Chen Chien-chou posted messages on social media, with photographs of Taiwan’s athletes in action at the Tokyo Games, to show their support.
However, the photographs were of content being streamed via a Ubox produced by the Chinese firm Unblock Tech, which is deemed an illicit streaming device, sparking a backlash online.
Chu insisted he that pays for legal content with a monthly local cable TV subscription, and that he used a “sanitized version” of the Ubox, with no software for illegal streaming.
Lawmakers at the briefing disputed his claim.
“It looks bad for Chu, trying to deceive the public about his use of a Ubox,” Chen Po-wei said. “This is a man who has recently declared that he plans to run for KMT chairman, but he installs a Chinese-made device to watch pirated content, and other Chinese-produced programming.”
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
RSS