The Taipei District Prosecutor's Office determined that the "Principal Lyle" video did not constitute plagiarism. Wei Chunyou and Yang Zhidan were not prosecuted

After investigation, the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office concluded that the core demands of the two creations were different, and the controversial scenes did not constitute alteration. The Taipei District Prosecutor's Office found that the crime was insufficient and gave the defendant a sanction of non-prosecution. (Photo by reporter Wu Shengru)

The New Media Department of the Kuomintang launched the propaganda drama "Principal Lyle" during the general recall. Several videos in it were found to be plagiarized by the production team of the TV series "Zero Day Attack" and a copyright infringement lawsuit was filed. After an investigation, the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office concluded that the core demands of the two creations were different, and the controversial scenes did not constitute alterations. The Taipei District Prosecutor's Office found that the charges were insufficient and gave Wei Chunyou, the former director of the Kuomintang and New Media Department, and Yang Zhitian, the former spokesperson, a non-prosecution sanction.

The zero-day attack production team and screenwriter Zheng Xinmei accused that in the "Principal Lyle" video released by the Kuomintang, many scenes were suspected of being adapted or plagiarized from the zero-day attack trailer, including "miscanthus scenes". Therefore, he reported it to the police and filed a copyright violation complaint against the Kuomintang, former New Media Department Director Wei Chunyou, and former spokesperson Yang Zhidan.

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When contacted, Wei Chunyou and Yang Zhitian said that the script in the film was brainstormed by the two of them. It mainly focused on the governance of the ruling party and fake news issues, using humorous political satire. The scene of miscanthus mentioned by the reporter was generated using AI technology. The tone and situation of the two are completely different.

The prosecutor inspected the videos of both parties and compared the details of the plagiarism dispute raised by the complainant. They found many differences and believed that the film was shot, edited, recorded and conceived by the Kuomintang team themselves.

After investigation, the prosecutor believed that the themes and backgrounds of the two videos were completely different, and the defendant was found to have insufficient criminal suspicion and was not prosecuted.