This Act is specifically enacted for the purposes of protecting the rights and interests of authors with respect to their works, balancing different interests for the common good of society, and promoting the development of national culture. Matters not provided for herein shall be governed by the provisions of other acts.

The competent authority under this Act is the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs shall appoint a specialized agency in charge of copyright matters.

For the purposes of this Act the following definitions shall apply:
1."Work" means a creation that is within a literary, scientific, artistic, or other intellectual domain.
2."Author" means a person who creates a work.
3."Copyright" means the moral rights and economic rights subsisting in a completed work.
4."The public" or "a public" means unspecified persons or multiple specified persons; provided, this does not apply to multiple persons of a household and the household's normal social acquaintances.
5."Reproduce" means to reproduce directly, indirectly, permanently, or temporarily a work by means of printing, reprography, sound recording, video recording, photography, handwritten notes, or otherwise. This definition also applies to the sound recording or video recording of scripts, musical works, or works of similar nature during their performance or broadcast, and also includes the construction of an architectural structure based on architectural plans or models.
6."Public recitation" means to communicate the content of a work to the public by spoken words or other means.
7."Public broadcast" means to communicate to the public the content of a work through sounds or images by means of transmission of information by a broadcasting system of wire, wireless, or other equipment, where such communication is for the purpose of direct listening reception or viewing reception by the public. This includes any communication, by transmission of information via a broadcasting system of wire, wireless, or other equipment, to the public of an original broadcast of sounds or images by any person other than the original broadcaster.
8."Public presentation" means to use single- or multiple-unit audiovisual devices, or other methods of transmitting images, to simultaneously communicate the content of a work to the public at the place of transmission or at a specified place outside the place of transmission.
9."Public performance" means to act, dance, sing, play a musical instrument, or use other means to communicate the content of a work to a public that is present at the scene. This includes any communication to the public of an original broadcast of sounds or images through loudspeakers or other equipment.
10."Public transmission" means to make available or communicate to the public the content of a work through sounds or images by wire or wireless network, or through other means of communication, including enabling the public to receive the content of such work by any of the above means at a time or place individually chosen by them.
11."Adaptation" means to create another work based upon a preexisting work by translation, musical arrangement, revision, filming, or other means.
12."Distribution" means, with or without compensation, to provide the original of a work, or a copy thereof, to the public for the purpose of trade or circulation.
13."Public display" means to display the content of a work to the public.
14."Publication" means distribution by the rights holder of a sufficient number of copies of a work to satisfy a reasonable level of public demand.
15."Public release" means public issue by the rights holder of the content of a work to the public through publication, broadcast, presentation, recitation, performance, display, or other means.
16."The original" or "an original" means the object to which a work is first fixed.
17."Electronic rights management information" means electronic information presented on the original or copies of a work, or at the time of communication of content of a work to the public, sufficient to identify the work, the name of the work, the author, the economic rights holder or person licensed thereby, and the period or conditions of exploitation of the work, including numbers or symbols that represent such information.
18.“Technological protection measures” means equipment, devices, components, technology or other technological means employed by copyright owners to effectively prohibit or restrict others from accessing or exploiting works without authorization.
19. "Internet service provider" means those who provide the following services:
(1) Connection service provider: those who provide services, by wire or wireless means, of transmitting, routing, or receiving, information through a system or network controlled or operated by the service provider, or of the intermediate and transient storage of information in the course of such transmitting, routing, or receiving.
(2) Caching service provider: those who, after information has been transmitted at the request of a user, provide services of intermediate and temporary storage of the information through a system or network controlled or operated by the service provider, for purposes of providing accelerated access to the information by users who subsequently request transmission of the information.
(3) Information storage service provider: those who provide information storage services at the request of a user through a system or network controlled or operated by the service provider.
(4) Search service provider: those who provide users with services, including an index, reference, or hyperlink, to search or hyperlink to online information.
"Place of transmission or at a specified place outside the place of transmission" as referred to in subparagraph 8 of the preceding paragraph includes motion picture cinemas, clubs, places where videocassetes or videodiscs are presented, hotel rooms, public transportation vehicles, or other places that may be accessed by unspecified persons.

Works of foreign nationals that comply with one of the following conditions may enjoy copyright under this Act; provided, where the terms of a treaty or an agreement that has been ratified by resolution of the Legislative Yuan provide otherwise, such terms shall govern:
1.Works that are first published in the territory under the jurisdiction of the Republic of China, or are published in the territory under the jurisdiction of the Republic of China within thirty days after their first publication in territory outside the jurisdiction of the Republic of China; provided, this shall only apply where the country of such foreign national extends protection under identical circumstances to the works of persons of the Republic of China, and such protection has been verified.
2.Where by treaty or agreement, or under the domestic acts, regulations, or standard practice of the home country of the foreign national, works of persons of the Republic of China enjoy copyright in such country.