The Copyright Act in Taiwan, stipulating that "the author
of a work shall enjoy copyright upon completion of the work,"
adopts the principle that copyright is vested automatically. That
is to say, an application or registration is not required to obtain
a copyright; if a work is indeed the creation of an author and not
the result of plagiarism, the work is deemed "original"
and entitled to protection under the Copyright Act regardless of
whether it resembles the work of another person. This is also a
basic principle taken by the Supreme Court; see, for example,
2003-Tai Shang-1339 and 2008-Tai Shang-1214.
Therefore, when determining the originality of a work, the key
lies in identifying "whether the work is self-created" or
"whether there is plagiarism involved". The existence of
a "similarity" or "resemblance" should be
deemed immaterial to complying with the spirit of the Copyright Act
to protect independent works. As to what level of proof is required
to determine
