Taiwan’s Intellectual Property Office has recently reminded the public that producing bookmarks featuring movie lines, book excerpts, or song lyrics for giveaway or sale may implicate copyright law. Where such content possesses originality and creativity, it constitutes a protected literary work, and converting it into bookmarks may simultaneously amount to acts of reproduction and distribution. Prior consent or authorization from the copyright owner is therefore generally required. 

Furthermore, quotation under Article 52 of the Copyright Act presupposes the existence of one’s own work, requires that another’s work be used for purposes of reference or commentary, and demands a reasonable connection between the quoted material and one’s own work, such that the two can be distinguished from each other — only then may the quoted material be used within a reasonable scope. As for what constitutes a “reasonable scope,” this is determined by comprehensively weighing the four factors set out in Article 65, Paragraph 2 of the same Act; a claim of fair use is permissible only where the use does not unduly affect the rights of the copyright owner. 

Accordingly, where movie lines, book excerpts, or song lyrics are simply printed on bookmarks without the addition of any original creative content and bear no relation to the purposes of reference or commentary, a claim of fair use will generally not succeed.