It can be argued that in most cases the Chinese publisers on Taiwan are not infringing on the copyright of the American publishers or authors because (1) The Republic of China has not joined the Universal Copyright Convention; (2) the copyright laws of both countries make registration with the government in the country mandatory for legal protection; (3) since the majority of Chinese publications are not published in the United States or in a member country of the Universal Copyright Convention, they are not eligible for copyright protection according to the manufacturing clause of the American law; (4) Strict1y speaking, the word piracy or infringement can be applied only to those cases in which the concerned titles are duly registered for protection in accordance with the Chinese law, and the flowing back of unauthorized reproductions to countries of origin. Ploman and Hamilton state ironically that there is nothing universal about copyright. Indeed, one can even say that what is universal is the so-cal1ed book piracy problem, and the desire of all peoples to be educated and to participate in cultural life and scientific advancement (Universal Declaration -of Human Rights, 1948). Importation and exploitation of scientific and cultural materials from a developed country to a developing country is a common phenomenon, and one may wel1 cal1 in question whether it is real1y unethical. It is indeed unethical not to give credit and encourage authors and artists, but it can be more unethical to consider knowledge as commodity or as monopoly of publishers and authors. What is needed is a more open attitude towards cultural materials which, as in the ancient noncommercial oriented societies like China and India, should be in the public domain as much as possible . The traditional concept of copyright originated in the fifteenthcentury west. Its resultant system has grown rigid and outworn jacket for this Information Age. It is high time that we review it in the light of the pressing needs of cross-cultural communication. The Sino-American copyright issue in particular is such a problem. It can be satisfactorily resolved only by giving more consideration to the needs of the people for information and culture than those of the authors or the publishers.