Websites Can Legally Pirate Porn Movies, Prosecutors Rule

For years Japan’s leading producers of pornographic movies have been battling to protect their content overseas. In particular they have focused on Taiwan where websites openly sell their videos and TV channels air their content without permission. The studios eventually took legal action, but to no avail. This week prosecutors made the decision not to prosecute any of the alleged pirates, ruling that since pornography is obscene it isn’t worthy of copyright protection.

For years producers of porn movies in Japan have bemoaned the lack of protection their content has received in Taiwan.

In 2010 things came to a head. The leading producers of the 20,000+ adult movies released in Japan each year warned Taiwan that if it didn’t get tough on pirates selling their content on websites and even airing it on TV, legal action would follow.

In a sign of how desperate they had become, the Japanese companies added that if they had no remedy under copyright law, they would sue the pirates for spreading obscene material and damaging the health of Taiwan’s children.

As crazy as it sounds this approach had the potential to work. While authorities have done nothing to protect copyrights of adult material, they do arrest people for distributing obscene material. However, the authorities came to a decision this week and it was bad news all round for the porn companies.

The Taipei District Court Prosecutors Office announced that it would not be pressing charges against any of the Taiwanese companies accused of committing copyright infringement.

more here: http://intellihub.com/2013/03/23/websites-can-legally-pirate-porn-movies-prosecutors-rule/