Article 91-1, Paragraph 4 was added into the Copyright Act as promulgated in July 9, 2003. According to the amendment reasons, destroying this kind of criminal organization was the purpose. As for distributors of counterfeit products, if they disclose the source of the counterfeit products so as to let upfront suppliers be caught, their terms of imprisonment can be reduced so as to encourage their cooperation with judicial agencies. So, adopting Article 17 of the Drug Prevention Act as legislative precedent to add Paragraph 4 is the result. In terms of the rule of reducing the term of imprisonment if the disclosure of drug sources leads to arrest, according to the decision highlight of Highest Court 2008 Tai Shang Zi No. 1475, the so-called “disclosure of drug sources which leads to arrest” means that the defendant discloses the relevant information of drug sources, such as prior owners’ names, age, addresses, or other features that are sufficient for identification, which makes government agents, who are responsible for investigating or uncovering crimes, begin to investigate or uncover such the crimes and consequently leads to arrest. That is, a defendant’s “disclosure of drug sources” and the arrest that results from the fact that government agents, who are responsible for investigating or uncovering crimes, begin to investigate or uncover such the crimes should theoretically occur in sequence and have a cause-and-effect relationship. The legislation of Article 91-1, Paragraph 4 of the Copyright Act followed the legislative precedent (where the provision has used “’wu’ pin” which is different from “’du’ pin” and the only difference is “wu” as opposed to “du.”), so it is reasonable to adopt the above-mentioned view. However, although here the defendant “disclosed the source of the goods,” “Yang, Zhi-yong” mentioned by him refers to a person whose real name was unknown. Judicial policemen or prosecutors could not further conduct investigation or uncovering, and even it is not to say that any arrest had occurred. Consequently, the rule of reducing punishment according to Article 91-1, Paragraph 4 of the Copyright Act cannot apply to this case.

Disclosure of product sources