E-commerce platform pirated books form a gray industry chain
Cooperative governance to combat piracy "gopher circle"
Our reporter Pu Xiaolei
Not long ago, in the live broadcast room of Dongfang Selection, "History of Chinese Philosophy" was sold out after it was put on the shelves. Shocked.
"With the help of e-commerce platforms, relatively small books such as "History of Chinese Philosophy" can be sold for urgent reprints. In my opinion, this is a miracle of Internet cultural dissemination." Liu Xiaochun said, but on the other hand , pirated books are also taking advantage of the "Dongfeng" spread by the Internet, which cannot be ignored.
In recent years, thanks to Internet technology and e-commerce platforms, online book sales are more convenient and faster, but at the same time, pirated books are also rampant on e-commerce platforms, which seriously squeezes the market for genuine books and affects authors' enthusiasm for creation. hinder the cultural development and innovation of our country.
Moreover, pirated books have poor printing quality and many content errors, which will cause trouble for readers to acquire knowledge, and even use harmful materials, which seriously endangers the physical and mental health of readers.
Du Ying, a professor at the Law School of the Central University of Finance and Economics, believes that the protection of book copyrights requires the participation and coordination of multiple parties.
Platforms, governments, rights holders, operators on the platforms, users, industry organizations and other entities should all assume corresponding responsibilities, form a joint force to combat pirated book infringement, maintain a healthy and green platform book market ecological environment, and achieve a win-win situation for all parties.
High profits attract e-commerce to sell pirated books
According to the "Report on the Book Retail Market in the First Half of 2022", the proportion of online channels in the book retail market in 2021 will be close to 80%.
With the help of e-commerce platforms, the sales of some popular books have skyrocketed.
Writer Liang Xiaosheng sold more than 20,000 singles of "The World" in a live broadcast of "Douyin 818 Discovering Good Things Festival", becoming the number one bestseller of JD Books in the first half of the year.
Some books that were originally "unpopular" have also ushered in "new life" with the help of e-commerce platforms.
After reading "We and the World", Ma Lanhua, a book expert, thought this book was very suitable for children to read, so she recommended it to netizens on the short video platform, so that this book, which had not had much online sales before, was sold within a month. Nearly 7000 volumes.
At the same time, pirated books are becoming more and more popular on e-commerce platforms.
Pirated books on some e-commerce platforms even squeezed the genuine book market for a time.
In recent years, in the case of manufacturing and selling pirated books detected by the police in many places, pirated book shops can sell hundreds of thousands or even millions of books every year, and the annual sales amount reaches several million yuan or even tens of millions of yuan.
"Businessmen are attracted by the high profits of pirated book sales, and they are lucky. Even if they are banned after being discovered, the loss is usually not very large. This breeds a strong industrial chain behind pirated books." Liu Xiaochun said that in this gray industry In the chain, each link is divided into cooperation and batch operations, and the operation is very mature and professional.
Pirated books on e-commerce platforms have formed a gray industrial chain of "production, supply and sales".
E-commerce pirated book transactions are difficult to conceal and obtain evidence
Since 2005, my country has carried out the "Jianwang Action" to combat online infringement and piracy for 17 consecutive years, and achieved remarkable results, and the Internet copyright environment has been significantly improved.
But it is undeniable that pirated books still exist on e-commerce platforms.
"Books sold on e-commerce platforms are often published online and shipped offline. To determine whether a book is pirated, it mainly relies on information such as product descriptions, sellers' statements and explanations, and cannot make comprehensive and effective judgments in advance. Moreover, sometimes the information released by merchants It’s just to divert traffic, the transaction is carried out on other platforms, and the judgment link is longer and the uncertainty is higher.” Liu Xiaochun said that the governance of pirated books on e-commerce platforms is faced with problems such as difficulty in judgment and collaboration, and it is difficult to cure the stubborn disease of this industry. important reason.
Du Ying believes that, compared with the traditional pirated book sales, the sale of pirated books on e-commerce platforms has the problems of strong transaction concealment, wide sales range, large quantity, mixed sale of true and false, and difficulty in determining evidence.
"Even if pirated books are discovered, it is not easy to successfully defend their rights." Du Ying said that for copyright owners and publishers, pirated booksellers on e-commerce platforms appear in large numbers as individuals, and the transactions are highly concealed and rights protection costs. High, but relatively small returns, and even if one store is closed down, another store will appear on the platform, falling into a “gopher circle” of point-to-point attacks.
In Liu Xiaochun's view, for copyright owners, publishers, consumers and other relevant stakeholders, the protection of genuine copies is faced with problems such as difficult proof, long period of rights protection, low compensation, and low efficiency, which allows pirated books to take advantage.
In addition, the current e-commerce platform book governance has not yet formed an effective cooperation mechanism for all parties to link up, and there are still many areas to be improved in terms of clue provision, information sharing, joint action, and joint punishment.
The e-commerce platform should bear the corresponding main responsibility
In recent years, relevant departments have carried out several special actions to strictly rectify pirated books, and have repeatedly listed e-commerce platforms as key supervision targets.
In February this year, the Copyright Administration of the Central Propaganda Department, the Printing and Distribution Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department, the Anti-Illegal and Anti-Prohibition Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department, the Food and Drug Crime Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, the Teaching Materials Bureau of the Ministry of Education, and the Cultural Market Comprehensive Law Enforcement Supervision Bureau of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Jointly launched the "Youth Copyright Protection Season" campaign to strictly rectify the infringement and piracy in the fields of textbooks, teaching aids, children's books, etc., and demanded to strengthen the supervision of e-commerce platforms and implement the main responsibility of e-commerce platforms.
E-commerce platforms are also continuing to strengthen governance measures to create healthy and formal book sales channels.
For example, Douyin e-commerce platform IPPRO will be launched in 2021. So far, it has provided services for more than 7,300 rights holders and 11,000 IP records and rights protection, accepted more than 57,000 infringement complaints, and deleted more than 60,000 infringing links.
Du Ying pointed out that e-commerce platforms should establish protection rules and a "notice-deletion" mechanism in accordance with the law, and actively explore the protection of intellectual property rights of books.
The current legal norms on the protection of book copyrights on e-commerce platforms are mainly reflected in the Civil Code and the E-commerce Law.
Although the general provisions of Articles 1194 to 1197 of the Civil Code on infringement of network users and network service providers are not specifically aimed at e-commerce users and e-commerce platforms, they determine The subjective elements and the "notice-deletion" mechanism of the network service provider's indirect infringement judgment are not fundamentally different from the e-commerce law.
Du Ying believes that in addition to legal obligations, platforms can also take other autonomous measures.
For example, for different complainants, the platform can perform hierarchical classification according to the results presented by the previous transaction big data and complaint big data, and set up whitelists and blacklists accordingly, and whitelist honest complainants. The request for protection of its rights can be relaxed for review, and even a green channel can be set up for it to speed up the processing of its complaints.
For malicious complainants reflected in the data, key reminders shall be made, the review of their notices shall be strengthened, and effective measures shall be taken to prevent them from making repeated malicious complaints.
Information sharing, linkage and cooperation to form a joint force
In the view of many experts, only relying on the "single action" of the e-commerce platform cannot achieve a healthy ecology of book copyright protection on the e-commerce platform.
"At present, the contradictions and disputes in the field of online copyright are still severe, and pirated goods are still sold on e-commerce platforms. Protecting intellectual property rights and combating infringement and piracy is a long-term, complex and arduous task, and it is also a task that requires cooperation from many parties." He Guangyu, chairman of the anti-piracy alliance of the Beijing Fifteenth Society and deputy general manager of the Commercial Press, said.
In recent years, the exploration of multi-party cooperation has begun.
For example, Alibaba, Pinduoduo, Douyin and other e-commerce platforms have signed cooperation agreements on book copyright protection with the Beijing Fifteen Society Anti-Piracy Alliance and the Children's Publishing Anti-Piracy Alliance.
Moreover, positive effects have also emerged.
For example, Douyin e-commerce took the initiative to capture and analyze infringement clues with the help of the platform technology system. Last year, it assisted the police in cracking down on 17 infringement cases offline, arresting 150 criminal suspects, and the amount involved exceeded 260 million yuan.
"The protection of book copyrights on e-commerce platforms calls for multiple co-governance. Only through multi-subject co-governance, online and offline co-governance can the governance goals be achieved." Du Ying said.
While carrying out key actions against pirated books, relevant departments must promptly improve relevant policies and measures for copyright protection of e-commerce books, and supervise the platforms according to the law; e-commerce platforms must be held accountable in accordance with the law and strengthen governance; users must refuse pirated books , platform merchants must operate with integrity in accordance with the law; copyright owners, publishing houses and other rights holders should actively protect their rights... Du Ying believes that all parties must assume corresponding responsibilities in order to form a joint force against pirated books.
"It is necessary for rights holders, publishers, consumers, e-commerce platforms, and industry organizations to establish a linkage and cooperation mechanism in terms of clue provision, information sharing, joint action, and joint punishment." Liu Xiaochun suggested that in summarizing the whitelist, blacklist, On the basis of effective governance mechanisms such as rapid rights protection green channels, linkages can be shared among various platforms and channels to promote the formation of corresponding standards and regulations, laying the foundation for the industry to build a unified, coordinated and comprehensive governance mechanism.