A Look at Intellectual Property Piracy In Taiwan

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A Look at Intellectual Property Piracy In Taiwan

Intro: Current Piracy Situation

In Asia, Intellectual property piracy is rampant. Much attention has been directed at this issue and progress has been made in almost all Asian countries. Among them, Taiwan has been singled out as one of the worst offenders in the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) violation.[1] The following statistics shows that the piracy rate in Taiwan is not very high compared to Korea and China. (More recent data is unavailable when I checked BSA.)

Table 1. Piracy rates

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Country 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998

Korea 75% 76% 70% 67% 64%

U.S. 31% 26% 27% 27% 25%

Japan 66% 55% 41% 32% 31%

Taiwan 72% 70% 66% 63% 50%

China 97% 96% 96% 96% 95%

Total World 49% 46% 43% 40% 38%

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Source: Business Software Alliance (BSA)

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Why is Piracy so Rampant

Why, then, is Taiwan considered a major offender for the last three years and counting? First, Taiwan has a monopoly on CD manufacturing and is renowned for its hardware manufacturing. Spend some time researching about blank CDs and you will find that most of them are manufactured in Taiwan.

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