TAIWAN

New Law May Hurt Video Parlors: Once-booming video parlors that showed pirated foreign films face a gloomy future because of tough revisions to copyright law that took effect last week. Parliament, under heavy pressure from the United States, revised the law last month, strengthening protection for foreign films, music recordings and computer software. “U.S. filmmakers are demanding exorbitant prices for copyright to their films . . . It will suck our blood dry,” said industry spokesman Liu Chiung-sen. Liu, secretary-general of the Foundation for the Development of MTV Business, said the closure of many of the island’s 152 remaining video parlors, or MTVs, will cost 3,000 jobs. At their peak in 1989 there were more than 1,000 parlors, but their numbers dwindled under threat of government action against them.