Taiwan rapper faces jail
p2pnet.net News:- A Taiwan rapper is facing jail for singing what he thought.
Jeff Huang is flatly refusing to apologize to Council of Hakka Affairs Vice Minister Chiu Yi-ying, “even though he [Huang] has been indicted on a libel charge and faces a possible two-year prison sentence if he loses the court case,” says the Taipei Times.
“What I wrote in my lyrics was the truth,” it has Huang said saying. “I do not understand why I should apologize. If she [Chiu] criticizes my music, I am more than happy to accept it. But she is complaining about the truth, and I will not compromise when it comes to that.”
Huang says he was expressing dissatisfaction over a proposal by several legislators to amend copyright laws in 2003.
“The amendment would have created a mechanism for artists to receive limited compensation for their work when downloaded by clients from legal Web sites, while operators would also have to pay a certain percentage of their profits to copyright holders,” says the story, going on:
“At the time, Huang said the compensation proposed in the amendment was ‘trivial,’ and that the Web sites were infringing on an artist’s intellectual property rights. Last year, after a not-guilty ruling by the court on the music download Web site ezPeer, Huang was furious. He composed a song called Retribution in which he named legislators, saying they had been bribed by Web site operators and were ‘murdering’ Taiwan’s music industry.”
Huang was indicted for alleged “aggravated libel,” says MyEGov.
“The lyrics of one of his songs claimed that 43 legislators, including former Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Yi-ying, and Chang Hsueh-shun, are involved in attempting to murder Taiwanese music and that they support pirated music,” says the post, going on:
“The lyrics further suggested that the legislators should be on the alert, even mentioning that they might ‘die an unexpected death.’ The lyrics also hinted that the peer-to-peer (P2P) Web sites Kuro and Ezpeer that allow subscribers to download music must have offered bribes to the legislators, as a code was being proposed for P2P operators.”
The People First Party legislative caucus, “noted that the aim of the code proposal is to protect copyrighted materials and to discuss how to compensate people whose works have been provided for downloads, as well as in what ways P2P operators could be empowered to let subscribers download music,” says MyEGov, adding:
“The PFP stressed that it is inappropriate for a singer to list the names of legislators and criticize them with such scathing language.
“Chiu stressed that unless Huang issued a public apology to her, she would not drop the lawsuit. If Huang is convicted, he would face a maximum of two years in jail. However, Huang insisted that there was no need for him to apologize as he was simply supporting Taiwanese music, helping to protect copyrighted materials and showing fierce opposition to pirated music.
“In response to his indictment, singers showed their support for Huang. Aboriginal singers Biung and Wang Hong-en said that it was ridiculous for a person to be indicted over a song that voiced opposition to pirated music, adding that the government should spend more time investigating scandals rather than indicting singers.”
Also See:
Taipei Times – Lawmakers and rapper go toe-to-toe over insults, August 11, 2006
MyEGov – Huang may have to face the music, August 11, 2006
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August 14th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
That is your point of view, but millions of people like rap. maybe they find your music crap, think about that.
Note: A singer normally sing a song for himself or to spread a message. So the more people ‘ilegally’ download it, the more the singers music is know and his/her message get spread, that’s a good thing isn’t it? So why should u sing against it… i don’t get it.
This world seem to be all about money. The most artists who oppose ilegal downloading have already became rich by there music. A new starting artist will be happy if thousands of people downloaded his/her first CD, that means it’s a succes. If you really like it, you can go and buy the CD, so the artist has a little money to start another CD.
I do wonder when Huang sings that particular song, who will buy it? I pressume people will only accidentically download that song ‘illegal’.