The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment to the Copyright Act ("Act") on January 7, 2014, expanding the applicable scope of fair use for visually and hearing impaired persons.  The amendment was promulgated on January 22, 2014.

 

Article 53 of the Act relates to the application of fair use for mentally and physically disabled persons, which originally provides that certain kinds of listed mentally and physically disabled persons may reproduce the works of another person which have already been publicly released to be accessible format versions through certain ways and then exploit them.  The amendment explicitly provides that the subjects who can reproduce such accessible format versions include central government agencies, non-profit organizations, all levels of legally established schools, and the disabled persons or their guardians for personal and nonprofit use by referring to the spirit of Article 4 of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled ("Marrakesh Treaty") of the WIPO.  Moreover, such reproduced accessible format versions may be distributed or publicly transmitted among all of the abovementioned subjects.

 

Article 80-2 of the Act relates to the technological protection measures employed by copyright owners.  To be specific, the article provides the copyright owners additional protection when they employ certain technological protection measures to protect their copyrights so as to ensure that such measures will not be destroyed, or circumvented by any other means.  The amendment provides an additional proviso under Item 9, Paragraph 3, Article 80-2 of the Act to specify that Article 80-2 of the Act is not applicable when the copyright is exploited under fair use by referring to the spirit of Article 7 of the Marrakesh Treaty so as to substantiate the protection for the disabled persons.