China News Agency, Beijing, April 26: The draft amendment to the Copyright Law was submitted to the 17th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress on the 26th. This is the third time that the law has been officially revised. Many new aspects deserve attention.
Aspect 1: Strengthening copyright protection in cyberspace
The draft amendment to the Copyright Law replaces "movie works and works created in a manner similar to filmmaking" to "audiovisual works". Revise the relevant expressions of broadcasting rights to meet the requirements of the development of new technologies such as the simultaneous transmission of works on the Internet.
With the development of communication technology, new types of works are constantly emerging. Can a short video of a few seconds constitute a "work" in the sense of copyright law? Can computer fonts, music fountains, live broadcasts of sports events, online game live broadcasts, and even artificial intelligence products be listed as protected by copyright law?
Zhang Hongbo, director general of the Chinese Copyright Association, believes that in recent years, many new forms of works have become works in the sense of copyright law, but they are not "movie works" in the current law, and it is somewhat reluctant to be classified as "electric works". The revision of the draft clarifies the type of work, not only solves the problem of how to classify new formats such as short videos in practice, but also integrates with international conventions.
Liu Chuntian, the dean of the School of Intellectual Property of Renmin University of China, said that with the rapid changes in the content and expression of the works, the means of using advanced technology to infringe copyrights have also been constantly renovated. In order to solve the problems that the current copyright law stipulates that it is difficult to cover new things and cannot adapt to the new situation, the draft makes many amendments including "audiovisual works" and "broadcasting rights".
Aspect 2: To introduce a punitive compensation system to significantly increase illegal costs
According to the draft, for serious cases of infringement, punitive damages that are more than double and less than five times the amount of compensation can be applied; the upper limit of the statutory compensation amount is increased from RMB 500,000 to RMB 5 million.
Statistics show that in the past quite a long time, copyright infringement cases handled by courts accounted for 60% of total intellectual property disputes. Problems such as high cost of defending rights and low amount of infringement compensation have been criticized.
Zhang Hongbo believes that "the gain is not worth the loss" is the main reason for the difficulty of copyright protection. Increasing the amount of statutory compensation and introducing a punitive compensation system have complied with the many years of appeals from all sectors of society and are in line with the practical needs of China ’s economic, social and cultural development, and will have a powerful deterrent and warning effect on infringement and piracy.
"The most important thing for strengthening protection is to ensure that the illegal costs are higher than the illegal benefits," said Liu Junhai, a professor at Renmin University of China Law School.
Aspect 3: Enrich law enforcement methods and increase supervision
The draft stipulates that the copyright collective management organization shall publish the general situation of the collection and transfer of licensing fees, the extraction and use of management fees, and the unallocated portion of the usage fees to the society, and shall establish a rights information query system for rights holders and users to query . The national copyright authority should strengthen the supervision and management of copyright collective management organizations. The authority in charge of copyright has been added to query the parties, investigate illegal acts, conduct on-site inspections, consult and copy relevant materials, and seal and seize relevant places and items.
The lack of law enforcement tools by the competent authorities is also an important reason for the difficulty in safeguarding rights. Zhang Hongbo believes that the draft clarifies the legal basis for copyright administration to carry out copyright administrative enforcement, which is conducive to enhancing the transparency and professional ability of copyright collective management organizations.
Wu Handong, Honorary Chairman of the Intellectual Property Law Research Society of the Chinese Law Society, said that he emphasized that the competent national authorities strengthen the supervision and management of copyright collective management organizations, which can better regulate copyright collective management behavior and protect the interests of copyright owners. At the same time, increasing law enforcement will help to improve the governance efficiency in the field of copyright.
Aspect 4: To increase the work registration system
Compared with the current copyright law, the draft adds a work registration system to facilitate the public to understand the ownership of work rights, and clarify that relevant works can be registered with the registration agency recognized by the national copyright authority.
In recent years, the number of copyright registrations in China has grown rapidly. According to a notice from the National Copyright Administration, the total number of national copyright registrations in 2019 reached 4,186,549, an increase of 21.09% year-on-year. On the one hand, the number of copyright registrations in China has grown rapidly, but on the other hand, the current copyright law has never made clear and specific provisions on copyright registration.
"In the context of the rapid development of network technology, there is an urgent need to clarify the ownership of works." Wu Handong believes that the work registration system will play a variety of roles: clear attribution to facilitate the identification of the copyright subject of the work; reduce copyright disputes and facilitate the clarification of copyright in transactions Subject; when claiming rights, the registered items can be used as a preliminary proof that the copyright owner has the right; protect the relevant economic interests of the right owner; promote the development of copyright foreign trade.
Aspect 5: Strengthen the legal connection and improve the copyright protection system
The draft also has some notable changes, such as changing "citizens" to "natural persons", "other organizations" to "unincorporated organizations," and extending the protection period of photographic works.
"These amendments are to unify the current legislative terminology, strengthen the connection with other civil laws, and implement the relevant international treaty obligations that China has joined in recent years." Said Wang Zhengzhi, director of the Intellectual Property Professional Committee of the All China Lawyers Association.
Liu Chuntian said that China's intellectual property system adopts a decentralized legislative approach, formally separated from the civil law system. The draft amendment is consistent with the civil law and other civil laws, which is conducive to the improvement of the legal system.
Wang Zhengzhi believes that in addition to strengthening legislation, administrative enforcement, judicial protection and other aspects should also make further efforts to speed up the administrative processing of copyright infringement, increase the intensity of administrative punishment and judicial punishment, and use high punishment, high sentencing and other sanctions Infringer.
"The revision of the copyright law not only conforms to China's national conditions, but also conforms more closely to international practice." Liu Junhai said. (Finish)