The Taiwanese government passed a series of amendments to update its Copyright Act in April and July of 2022. The amendments were part of a series of changes to Taiwan’s intellectual property laws to comply with the regulations under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).  The CPTPP is a free trade agreement among a number of Pacific nations, including Canada, Australia, Mexico, and Japan. With the amendments, Taiwan moves one step closer to joining the CPTPP.

The April amendments include cracking down on digital piracy by making instances of digital piracy constituting serious infringement offences that are indictable without complaint.  The amendments also include reductions in penalties for optical disc piracy, which is no longer considered to be a major area of copyright infringement.

The July amendments are meant to facilitate distance and digital learning by providing, among other features, fair use rules for copyrighted materials in distance learning.

More information on the amendments is available here.