Taiwan's P2P Giant Goes Legal

by Mary Swire, for LawAndTax-News.com, Hong Kong

18 September 2006

The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) announced last Thursday that Kuro, Taiwan's best-known unauthorised file-sharing service, has paid a substantial sum in damages to the recording industry and agreed to shut down its copyright-infringing P2P operation.

Under the settlement with record companies represented by IFPI Taiwan, Kuro's operator, Taipei-based Fashion Now Co. Ltd, will stop distributing its P2P software programme immediately and will ensure closure of the copyright-infringing service by October 15.

Kuro, its directors and president all received a criminal conviction for copyright infringement in September 2005.

The service was run as a commercial subscription business, with an estimated 500,000 registered users in Taiwan and mainland China. The operator says it will launch a new legitimate music download website but will sever all links with the old infringing service.

IFPI General Counsel & Executive Vice-President, Geoff Taylor announced last week that:

"Unauthorised file-sharing services like Kuro profit from large-scale copyright infringement and undermine those legitimate online music services who pay artists and respect copyright. This settlement confirms that there is a bright future for legal online music services, while services that try to build a business on copyright theft pay a heavy price."

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