Students are urged to take precaution against the textbook photocopying. “You may infringe the author’s right,” a faculty member warned.

According to information available, prosecutors have recently accompanied staff members of Taiwan Book Exchange Association to conduct a search action against photocopying shops neighboring TKU.

Several photocopying shops located on Peihsin Road and Shuiyuan Road had been taken to lawsuit after several photocopies of textbooks or papers were found. According to the owner of the shop searched, the public prosecutor said that students might face fining in the next searching action.

Wen Yuan Copying Shop has been fined for the third time and the clerks said that what lousy luck they were! The owner of Weichieh Copying Shop replied that it would be impossible for them to illegally photocopy the textbook or thesis when he was asked whether it was possible to photocopy the textbook.

The searching action beginning from the last semester has made everybody in danger and they dare not violate the law, the owner said.

The owner of Tanda Photocopy Shop, one of the sufferers, had no choice to say that “this book has been out of publication since1991 and the graduate institute offered the course this semester. Teacher sent students to copy this textbook in my shop; otherwise, they didn’t have textbooks to read”. But the law enforcement officials fined him according to the number of pages copied and he had to be fined up to NT$400,000 for copying a textbook, he added.

The fine money may top the million new Taiwan dollars, he pointed out, adding that if you could not afford the fine, you should only accept facing a law sentence. He said that the majority of graduate students would choose to photocopy the textbook and said that although he was unwillingly to accept their inquiry of photocopying textbooks, he couldn’t but accept because the textbook which the professor assigned to use may be either out of publication or students cannot afford to buy a textbook.

Kao Chih-kun of the Graduate Institute of Physics said that some reference data were out of publication and he couldn’t but photocopy because he badly need these data. Lee Ming-hsiu of the Graduate Institute of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering said that students might force to buy a photocopying machine to photocopy the textbook or data needed by themselves if the photocopying shops refuse them to photocopy their books.