The GimyTV network of sites had been in operation since 2019. At the time of the police enforcement, its nine domains attracted more than 36 million visits per month, According to the announcement by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE).
The Taipei District Court sentenced the primary operator, Sean Wu, to 26 months in prison. Kuo Ren-Quan, the sites’ programmer, was sentenced to 22 months. The other two operators, Zhuang Shao-Qi and Wu Nian-Wen, were given jail terms of 18 months and 12 months, respectively. The terms were the longest ever given for copyright offenses there.
Following complaints by ACE and other rights holders, the Taiwanese police carried out a successful raid against the defendants in October 2020. Prior to the police action, a number of GimyTV domains were also the subject of site blocking orders granted by judicial or administrative authorities in Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, and Singapore.
Further reading
ACE applauds Taiwanese court sentencing of GimyTV illegal streeaming service operators. Press release. February 1, 2024. Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE)
Why it matters
“I … congratulate Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau and the Taipei District Prosecutor’s Office for the successful prosecution of the GimyTV operators,” said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the MPA and Head of ACE. “The prosecution and custodial sentencing of the four GimyTV operators follows the successful prosecution last year against the notorious Taiwanese-operated 8maple websites.
“These cases have considerable deterrence value and demonstrate how seriously the Taiwan prosecutor’s office and courts take large-scale copyright crimes, as well as ACE’s continued commitment to tackling piracy in Taiwan,” said Mr. van Voorn.
