Showing posts with label copyright. Show all posts
Showing posts with label copyright. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Chinese Movie Posters Give You "Double Vision" Without The Alcohol

Clone and Original
The silver screen is known to bring out the imagination of people. However, China's film industry has not given birth to a poster child of creativity, eyeing laboriously to any movie that has some measure of success, Chinese or foreign, and subsequently clone the film poster designs.

In November of 2011 I had my doubts about the independent creation of a Taiwanese movie poster, see here. Now Jing Gao of Ministry of Tofu has a series of 41 pairs of copycats and their originals, see here.
continue reading ...

Friday, January 06, 2012

China's NCA: Authorized Copyrighted Works on Video Sharing Sites Average 76 Percent

"China's National Copyright Administration (NCA) recently announced that on average, only 76 percent of the movies and TV series on the country's 18 major video-sharingwebsites are authorized copyrighted works",  wrote Lu Yanxia of Beijing Daily, edited and translated by Yao Chun of People's Daily Online here.

The top 5 most popular video sites in China are, according to Alexa: 
1. Youku
2. Tudou
4. 56.com
5. Joy.cn

Video sharing sites Xunlei, VeryCD, and Baidu video have not submitted the list of copyrighted movies and tv series they share to NCA. So the percentage might go up or down.

I think this percentage is too low. This problem is not limited to China. I think the enforcement system for online copyrighted works is in need for a systemic overhaul. I will publish a paper on the subject soon. 

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Friday, December 09, 2011

TGIF: Vacuum Cleaner Inventor Says The Darndest Things

Thank goodness it is Friday

Sir James Dyson was quoted by Dan Milmo in the Guardian, here, saying:

"They are running the risk of being expelled from the WTO. They are creating an unlevel playing field by taking our technology and selling it all over the world." 

With "they" Mr Dyson means China. I understand Mr Dyson's frustration, but the quote is grotesque. China cannot be simply pulled out of the World Trade Organization (WTO) equation. China is one of its key players. The idea about the WTO is to resolve the issues via a binding dispute resolution system. When Mr Dyson would have said that a dispute resolution procedure could be started against China's lack of IP enforcement or non-compliance of the national treatment principle (treating foreign companies at least as good as domestic ones), it would have made more sense.  

Police in Shenzhen. Aren't we ... visible?
Photo: Danny Friedmann
In the piece Mr Dyson, who invented the bagless vacuum cleaner and the bladeless electronic fan, makes the following clueless allegations to China:

- "China benefits from strictly monitored IP regimes outside its own border, but has failed to crack down on domestic offenders as it pursues rapid economic growth." Does China benefit much from strictly monitored IP regimes, if their alleged infringed products cannot enter into other countries? Did China fail to crack down on domestic offenders? One can argue that China failed to crack down on domestic offenders inadequately or insufficiently. But to assert that China failed to crack down on domestic offenders is simply not true (think about all the campaigns with the fancy names, see here 2010 and here 2011).
Mr Dyson backs up his claim with anecdotal, evidence: a patent infringement case he won, but where the infringers did not pay the fine nor stop their infringing activities.
- "China's reputation among foreign investors is being diminished by the flouting of product copyrights and a two-speed patent system that appears to discriminate against non-Chinese applications."
With "product copyrights" probably intellectual property protection is meant, which includes invention-patents, utility-patents, design-patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. To make such sweeping statements is not useful unless they are backed up by research that gives the status on how the intellectual property rights of British industries or European industries are protected. Until now Chinese foreign direct investments did not correlate much with China's level of intellectual property enforcement level. It seems more to correspond to China's economic growth. And I have not come across evidence that foreign patents on average are examined slower. Very broadly speaking a utility and design patent takes about half a year and an invention patent can take up to two years time. 

Dyson, the company, is spending 10 million UK pounds per year on legal costs (according to an article by James Hurley in the Telegraph, see here) and is also inventive to bring the intellectual property in China challenges under the attention of people in British government, such as David Cameron (prime minister) and Baroness Wilcox (IP minister). 

Inconvenient truth about intellectual property infringement
A Dyson bagless vacuum cleaner costs about 4,000 Yuan in China. Factory workers in Shenzhen make about 1,200 Renminbi per month and middle class earnings are about 4,000 Renminbi per month. The inconvenient truth is that the more a company has spent on research and development (as is the case with Dyson) or marketing and advertising (as is the case with luxury brands) the bigger the incentive for infringers to ride on the coat tails of some other companies' economic activities.
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Friday, August 05, 2011

National Copyright Administration and Intellectual Property Office Held Second Video Conference

National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC) and Britain's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) held their second video conference in 2011 as they had agreed in a Memorandum of Understanding. Wouldn't it be interesting if the public could watch such a video conference? OK, I stop daydreaming. They discussed:
  • NCAC: enforcement campaigns
  • NCAC: third amendment of Copyright Law
  • IPO: Hargreaves report
  • IPO: Recruitment advertising in Beijing and Hong Kong for personnel to protect British IPR in China
Read more here.
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Friday, April 22, 2011

After 44 Years Chinese Lovers of Literature Can Legally Buy "One Hundred Years Of Solitude"

Photo Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara 
TGIF

Zhang Lei wrote a nice article for the Global Times about Thinkingdomhouse, a publisher who achieved to get a copyright license for China from Nobel Prize for Literature laureate Gabriel García Márquez to publish his masterpiece 'One hundred years of solitude' (Cien años de soledad).

"Unauthorized editions were widely available in markets as early as the 1980s, which infuriated the author, who vowed that even 150 years after his death, his works would not be authorized in China, when he visited in 1990." Well if Márquez was quoted correctly, he might be able to abstain Chinese publishers from authorised versions, but his copyright will expire 50 years after the moment he will exchange the temporary with the eternal. Then again within magic-realism, a writing style Márquez brought to great fruition, 150 years starting in the 1980s is a possibility which can not be completely excluded. It is great news that this summer an authorised version of Márquez' masterwork will be on sale in China. On the one hand it is moral rights of the author to determine whether he makes his work public or not (le droit de divulgation). On the other hand you cannot blame Chinese literature lovers that they want to read Márquez' masterpiece of which Pulitzer Prize winner William Kennedy said "the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race."

Zhang is mentioning China's membership of the Universal Copyright Convention in 1992, as the moment the publishing industry has gradually increased awareness of copyright. According to this convention an author had to put a © on their work, his name and the year of creation in order to be protected via copyright.

Article III (1.) Universal Copyright Convention: "Any Contracting 'State which, under its domestic law, requires as a condition of copyright, compliance with formalities such as deposit, registration, notice, notarial certificates, payment of fees or manufacture or publication in that Contracting State, shall regard these requirements as satisfied with respect to all works protected in accordance with this Convention and first published outside its territory and the author of which is not one of its nationals, if from the time of the first publication all the copies of the work published with the authority of the author or other copyright proprietor bear the symbol © accompanied by the name of the copyright proprietor and the year of first publication placed in such manner and location as to give reasonable notice of claim of copyright."

Interestingly, this is in contradiction to the "no formalities" requirement of article 5 (2) Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works to which China acceded in the same year. UNESCO's Universal Copyright Convention has been rather dormant lately, but it could already make a useful distinction between works in the public domain without the © and those protected by copyright. It avoids also to some extent the copyright orphan problem, because the name must be included. Creative Commons has been "ported" to China and makes clear what kind of use is allowed online, see here. 

Read the Global Times article here.    
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China's Supreme People's Court Will Tell You How Safe Safe Harbours Are

Photo Rneches
Main entrance Supreme People's Court Beijing
The writers versus Baidu case triggered the Supreme People's Court to draft a judicial interpretation of online copyright, and can be expected this year. A refinement of the Regulation on Protection to Network Dissemination of Information, is welcomed. Hopefully the Supreme People's Court will succeed in making the principles crystal clear whether a safe harbour applies or an online service provider is held contributorily liable. The president of the Supreme People's Court, Kong Xiangjun was quoted by Li Mao saying:  "The judicial interpretation would help protect copyright owners, network service providers as well as online users [..]." Judge Kong also said that half of all copyright cases were online cases. I hope they also illuminate the subject of online trademark, which sometimes is interpreted analogously with online copyright, but, given is distinct character, deserves its own attention from China's highest authority in the interpretation of the law.

Read Li Mao's article for the Global Times here.
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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Benchmarking China's IPR Protection and Enforcement

In response to China's umpteenth pledge to protect intellectual property, Mr Robert Holleyman, president of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) said: "We will know China has made real progress in reducing piracy only when software companies start seeing substantial increases in sales." Read Sewell Chan's article here.

Mr Holleyman is doing something very constructive: he is trying to bench mark China's protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights. However, he is not looking at piracy of software copyrights, but to the income of the sale of genuine software. This might be the result, but is too simple, since the sale of genuine software is dependent on more factors than IPR infringements.

Mr Holleyman should consider using the enforcement/infringement ratio, which is a bit more complex, but gives a more robust answer to the question, is China's enforcement of IPR going forwards, backwards or unchanged.
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Saturday, November 27, 2010

Copied Gun Manufacturer Starts Campaign Against Manufacturers of Copied Copied Guns

MadBull Airsoft launched Operation Copycat', a campaign against counterfeit and cloned airsoft (in between real and toy) guns, read here.

"The enforcement of intellectual properties of gun manufacturers and gear makers in airsoft has been ongoing for sometime now. We know of Umarex, Cybergun, and Magpul on the watch for companies, and mostly at the retail end to block the export and sales of clones and unlicensed products coming out from the Far East, mainly from Mainland China."

Airsoft is a hobby for grown-ups that like to use 1:1 replicas of real guns to shoot each other with plastic pellets. Read more here.

A manufacturer of copied guns that starts a campaign against a manufacturer of copied copied guns? Is this not tu quoque? Well the airsoft manufacturer has the license of the gunmaker to use the design from the manufacturers of the real guns. In some jurisdictions the licensee of a trademark, copyright or design right can enforce the right of the intellectual property holder. Then the airsoft manufacturer has its own trademark and might have copyright and design rights (if it is visible).
continue reading ...

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Trademark/Copyright Use or Abuse: Coca-Cola in Hong Kong

Do you think this use of the trademark should be allowed.

"Immoral to drink sweat and blood. Coca-Cola."


Photo taken from the wall at Franklin Centre at CUHK Campus in Shatin, Hong Kong. It is in protest against alleged bad labour conditions at the Coca-Cola plant.
One could argue that the copyright (moral right of droit au respect de l'intégrité de l'oeuvre) of the Pulitzer Prize winning photo by Eddie Adams is infringed.
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Monday, November 08, 2010

Film Work Collective Copyright Management Use Fee Transfer Payment Rules


Remember that the National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC) promulgated rules for operators of internet cafes, planes, trains and automobiles have to start pay royalties for showing Chinese movies to the China Film Copyright Association. Read Hard Choice? Chinese Internet Café Owners/Transport Operators Can Choose Paying for Chinese Movies Or Using Free Pirated Movies.

IP Dragon's friend Rogier Creemers translated the Film Work Collective Copyright Management Use Fee Transfer Payment Rules, read here.
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Sunday, September 05, 2010

Anglo-Chinese Memorandum of Understanding on Copyright


Intellectual property minister Wilcox and the president of the National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC) Liu Binjie signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoA) on Copyright, read more on the UK Central Office of Information site here.

continue reading ...

Monday, March 15, 2010

Declaration of Copyright Self-Regulation of the Chinese Internet Sector

About 100 websites, among others Sohu, Baidu and Youku have signed a declaration of copyright self-regulation. Rogier Creemers translated the declaration. Thank you.

Declaration of Copyright Self-Regulation of the Chinese Internet Sector

In order to safeguard copyright and related right holders' lawful rights and interest, stimulate the healthy development of the Internet industry, safeguard social and public interests, the representatives of the Internet sector make the following declaration of self-regulation to society:

I, Internet enterprises shall undertake their obligations to society, earnestly respect and propagate State propaganda laws and related policies, resist activities of piracy and copyright infringement, safeguard the lawful rights and interests of copyright holders, safeguard the healthy order of the Internet sector.

II, Persisting in the principle of first obtaining authorization and only then using works, not disseminating in any way works without authorization from the copyright holder.

III, Strengthening supervision and management of internet users uploading works, prompting users that they may not upload works of others, preventing third parties from using information network platforms of a certain work unit to engage in unlawful activities of copyright infringement.

IV, Vigorously adopting technological steps conform to generally acknowledged industry standards, preventing the occurrence of infringing activities. Works listed in administrative copyright management entity notices or in notices of the implementing organ of this Declaration as not being permitted to be uploaded without authorization, technological measures shall be taken to restrict users from uploading; technological measures shall be taken to restrict users from uploading video works in their period of movie theatre screening, and hot broadcasting.

V, Measures such as deletion of corresponding information, cessation of service, etc. will be taken to users violating service agreements, do not listen to advice, and engage in multiple infringing activities in order to stop them, and the corresponding competent authorities will be notified.

VI, Earnestly dealing with notification of copyright and corresponding copyright holders, guaranteeing that within 24 hours, steps are taken to delete or should corresponding information according to the law.

VII, Vigorously developing applied copyright authentication and claim systems, providing convenient passages for copyright holders in claiming copyright and authorizing.

VIII, Vigorously communicating with copyright holders and related industry associations, together researching the establishment of convenient work authorization application systems under an information network environment, stimulating the lawful dissemination of works.

IX, Vigorously coordinating with administrative copyright management entities' daily supervision and administrative enforcement investigation, safeguarding a desirable network copyright protection order.

X, Establishing Internet sector information common assistance systems, preventing malicious lawsuits and unfair competition activities, maintaining healthy Internet sector development.

But will it work?
What do you think will be the influence of the declaration?
continue reading ...

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

IPR Jurisdiction: Third Civil Division of Haining Municipal People's Court Specialises in Copyright and Trademark Disputes

Haining Municipal People's Court in Zhejiang Province set up the Third Civil Division, specializing the trial of civil cases concerning copyright disputes, trademark disputes and other related types of intellectual property rights disputes. Read the article here.

First instance IP appeal cases of TRAB and PRB will be heard by the IP Tribunal of the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court. Read the article by Howard Tsang and Lilian Shi of Wilkinson & Grist for Managing Intellectual Property Magazine here.
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Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Media Control Not Copyright Piracy Main Reason For China's Battle Against BitTorrent

Frederik Borgesius (research master at IViR, studying copyright law and internet law for a semester at the University of Hong Kong, paralegal at solv.nl, a Dutch IP & IT boutique law firm, and "dj Fred" by night at Yumla for example) sent IP Dragon an interesting link.

It's about China's aggressive stance against BitTorrent sites. In some countries BitTorrent sites are shut down. Mainly because of copyright piracy. In China the most important reason seems to be control over the media; China’s State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) concern is video websites that lack appropriate licensing and certification by the government, allegedly damaging children's minds and undermining national security. Read TorrentFreak's article by enigmax, here.
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Monday, November 30, 2009

How Much Does A Copyright Holder Get When His Content is Broadcast in China?

IP Dragon's friend Rogier Creemer, of Maastricht University, who is doing field research for his his PhD thesis about copyright, piracy and media control, points us to the provisional radio and tv broadcasting recording remuneration payment rules that will be effective January 1, 2010. Thank you Rogier.

Provisional Radio and Television Station Broadcasting Audio Recording Remuneration Payment Rules

State Council of the People's Republic of China Decree
No. 566

The "Provisional Radio and Television Station Broadcasting Audio Recording Remuneration Payment Rules" were passed on 6 May 2009 at the 62nd State Council permanent committee meeting, and will take effect on 1 January 2010.

Premier: Wen Jiabao
10 November 2009

Provisional Radio and Television Station Broadcasting Audio Recording Remuneration Payment Rules

Article 1: In order to guarantee that copyright holders can exercise their broadcasting rights according to the law, convenience radio and television stations to broadcast audio recordings, according to the provisions of Article 43 of the "Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China" (hereafter simply named Copyright Law", these Rules are formulated.

Article 2: Radio and television stations may according to relevant matters such as the method and number, etc. of broadcasting already published music works, pay remuneration to the copyright holder and conduct agreements with collective copyright management organizations managing the corresponding rights.
Radio and television stations broadcasting already published audio recordings, and already having concluded a contract permitting use with the copyright holder, pay remunerations according to the methods and standards agreed in the contract.
Radio and television stations that, according to the provisions of Article 43 of the Copyright Law, broadcast already published audio recordings (hereafter named broadcast of audio recordings) without authorization from the copyright holder, pay remuneration to the copyright holder according to these Rules.

Article 3: Broadcast as named in these Rules, refers to radio and television stations engaging in first broadcast, re-broadcast and relay broadcast with wireless or cable means.

Article 4: Radio and television stations broadcasting audio recordings, may agree with the collective copyright management organization managing the corresponding rights upon an annual fixed amount of remuneration to the copyright holder; where an agreement on a fixed amount is not concluded or where an agreement cannot be concluded, radio and television stations and the collective copyright management organizations managing the corresponding rights may use one of the following methods as a basis, and discuss remuneration payment to the copyright holder:
(1) Calculating remuneration payment value on the basis of the remaining sum of the annual advertising revenue of that station or the channels of that stations, after deduction of 15% expenses, multiplied with the remuneration standards provided in Article 5 or Article 6 of these Rules;
(2) Calculating remuneration payment value on the basis of the total time of annual broadcast of audio recordings by that station, multiplied with the remuneration payment standards provided in Article 7 of these Rules.

Article 5: Where the method provided in Article 4, Item (1) of these Rules determines the amount of remuneration payment to copyright holders, within 5 years of these Rules taking effect, the remuneration payment amount will be discussed according to the following remuneration standards:
(1) where the time proportion of broadcast of audio recordings occupies less than 1% of the total broadcast time of that station or that channel (hereafter named broadcast time proportion), the remuneration standard is 0,01%;
(2) where the broadcast time proportion is more than 1% and less than 3%, the remuneration standard is 0,02%;
(3) where the broadcast time proportion is more than 3% and less than 6%, the corresponding remuneration standard is 0,09% to 0,15%, for every 1% added to the broadcast time proportion, a extra 0,03% is added to the remuneration standard;
(4) where the broadcast time proportion is more than 6% and less than 10%, the corresponding remuneration standard is 0,24% to 0,4%, for every 1% added to the broadcast time proportion, a extra 0,04% is added to the remuneration standard;
(5) where the broadcast time proportion is more than 10% and less than 30%, the remuneration standard is 0,5%;
(6) where the broadcast time proportion is more than 30% and less than 50%, the remuneration standard is 0,6%;
(7) where the broadcast time proportion is more than 50% and less than 80%, the remuneration standard is 0,7%;
(8) where the broadcast time proportion is more than 80%, the remuneration standard is 0,8%.

Article 6: Where the method provided in Article 4, Item (1) of these Rules determines the amount of remuneration payment to copyright holders, after 5 years of these Rules taking effect, the remuneration payment amount will be discussed according to the following remuneration standards:
(1) where the time proportion of broadcast of audio recordings occupies less than 1% of the total broadcast time of that station or that channel (hereafter named broadcast time proportion), the remuneration standard is 0,02%;
(2) where the broadcast time proportion is more than 1% and less than 3%, the remuneration standard is 0,03%;
(3) where the broadcast time proportion is more than 3% and less than 6%, the corresponding remuneration standard is 0,12% to 0,2%, for every 1% added to the broadcast time proportion, a extra 0,04% is added to the remuneration standard;
(4) where the broadcast time proportion is more than 6% and less than 10%, the corresponding remuneration standard is 0,3% to 0,5%, for every 1% added to the broadcast time proportion, a extra 0,05% is added to the remuneration standard;
(5) where the broadcast time proportion is more than 10% and less than 30%, the remuneration standard is 0,6%;
(6) where the broadcast time proportion is more than 30% and less than 50%, the remuneration standard is 0,7%;
(7) where the broadcast time proportion is more than 50% and less than 80%, the remuneration standard is 0,8%;
(8) where the broadcast time proportion is more than 80%, the remuneration standard is 0,9%.

Article 6: Where the method provided in Article 4, Item (2) of these Rules determines the amount of remuneration payment to copyright holders, the remuneration payment amount will be discussed according to the following remuneration standards:
(1) The radio stations' unit time remuneration standard is 0,30 Yuan per minute;
(2) The television stations' unit time remuneration standard is 1,50 Yuan per minute within 5 years of these Rules taking effect, and 2 Yuan per minute after 5 years of these Rules taking effect.

Article 8: Radio and televisions stations broadcasting audio recordings, that cannot conclude on a fixed remuneration payment amount with the collective copyright management organizations managing the corresponding rights, and that cannot discuss the determination of remuneration payment, shall according to the method provided in Article 4, Item (1) of these Rules and the standards provided in Article 5 and Article 6, determine the amount of remuneration payment to the collective copyright management organizations managing the corresponding rights.

Article 9: Of radio and television stations relaying other radio and television stations' broadcast of audio recordings, the time of broadcasting of audio recordings shall be calculated as 10% of the actual broadcast time.

Article 10: The amount of remuneration payment to copyright holders according to the provisions of these Rules of central regions' radio and television stations, within 5 years of these Rules taking effect, will be calculated at 50% of the amount calculated according to the provisions of these rules.
The amount of remuneration payment to copyright holders according to the provisions of these Rules of western regions' radio and television stations and national specialised channels broadcasting to children, ethnic minorities, rural regions, etc, within 5 years of these Rules taking effect, will be calculated at 10% of the amount calculated according to the provisions of these rules, and after 5 years of these Rules taking effect, will be calculated at 50% of the amount calculated according to the provisions of these rules.

Article 11: County-level and higher People's Government financial entities make remuneration payment to copyright holders for broadcasting audio recordings by radio and television stations established by that level's People's Government a factor in appraising its revenues and expenditures, and on the basis of consideration of the general financial situation of that locality, conduct overall planning.

Article 12: Radio and television stations remuneration payment accounting to copyright holders, shall be conducted on an annual basis.
Radio and television stations shall hand over the due remuneration payment of the previous year to the collective copyright management organisation for transfer to the copyright holder in the first quarter of every year.
Radio and television stations, when paying remuneration to a copyright holder through a collective copyright management organisation, shall furnish details such as the name of the broadcasted work, personal or organization name of the copyright holder, the broadcast time, etc., except where both parties have agreed otherwise.

Article 13: Radio and television stations broadcasting audio recordings, not having paid remuneration to copyright holders other than members of the collective copyright management organisation managing the corresponding rights, shall according to the provisions of Article 12 of these Rules, hand over the due remuneration to the collective copyright management organisation managing the corresponding rights; the collective copyright management organisation managing the corresponding rights shall transfer the payment to the copyright holder.

Article 14: For collective copyright management organizations transferring payment to copyright holders, except where these Rules have provisions, the relevant provisions of the "Collective Copyright Management Regulations" apply.

Article 15: Radio and television stations, after handing over the due remuneration for copyright holders to collective copyright management organisations according to the provisions of these Rules, do not assume responsibility for disputes between the collective copyright management organisation and copyright holders.

 

Article 16: Where disputes arise between radio and television stations an copyright holders or collective copyright management organisations because of remuneration payment according to the provisions of these Rules, they may file a case with the People's Courts, or on the basis of a written arbitration agreement reached by both parties apply for arbitration with the arbitration organs.

Article 17: These Rules take effect on 1 January 2010.
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Monday, November 09, 2009

Promotion and Protection of China's Culture: Hard Copyright For Soft Power

In The Economist special report on China and the US called 'Overkill' where the author James Miles postulates the opinion that China is piling up more weapons than it appears to need, Mr Miles also writes about the need for China to develop its soft power:

"Soft power was mentioned for the first time by a Chinese leader in public in 2007. Culture, said Mr Hu [Jintao, China's president IP Dragon] (oblivious, it seemed, of the cold-war overtones of his remarks), was of growing significance in the “competition in overall national strength”. China should therefore “enhance culture as part of the soft power of our country”."

Read The Economist article here. Copyright can protect cultural manifestations, so makes copyright crucial to develop China's soft power.
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Professor David Llewlyn Explained All IPRs in One Hour

IP Dragon was attending yesterday evening the very inspiring lecture of Professor David Llewelyn at the University of Hong Kong, about the importance of intellectual property rights for not only experts, but everybody.

Professor Llewelyn made clear that the lecture was a public lecture meant for non-experts; the normal consumers; and put experts and expertise in perspective. He quoted Lord Denning that in the dictionary for example the word barrister comes directly after bankrupt and just before bastard. "IP needs to be understood, especially in this part of the world [referrring to Asia] by many constituencies that don't relate to each other. Patent people can only think about patents. Trademark people about trademarks etc." Professor Llewelyn was determined to speak only about the good things of intellectual property rights, so not about counterfeiting, pirating and the pressure of the developed countries on local developing governement officials.

Professor Llewelyn was referring to patent in all its meanings. The sentence: "It is patent" for example means "It's available." He was recalling Huawei who overtook the number one position of the company with the most patents from Panasonic. Professor Llewelyn was going to say only good things about IPRs, but as a good friend of IPRs, he critisised IPRs starting with patents: most were vanity publishing.

Then he was filleting the quality of some Hong Kong patents, and after a pit stop to the "stepsister of patents': trade secrets, he was off to trademarks. Professor Llewelyn told about the dispute between Jiangyou in Sichuan province and Anlu in Hubei province, who both claim their city as the hometown of the famous poet from the Tang dynasty called Li Bai.Jiangyou was not amused when they became familiar with a commercial on China Central Television (CCTV) that identified Anlu as the hometown of Li Bai. According to the South China Morning Post, Xinhua reported that the Jiangyou had registered the trademark "the Hometown of Li Bai, the City of Chinese Poems" in 2003. Therefore Anlu's commercial allegedly violated the trademark. Never mind that Jiangyou nor Anlu was the birthplace of the ancient poet, which was small town in what now is Kyrgyzstan, as the South China Morning Post mentioned.

Professor Llewelyn urged companies to think ahead: Chinese computer maker wanted to expand abroad, but they forsaw problems with the trademark legend that was already trademarked in many countries. Therefore they decided to change their name into Lenovo, which is distinctive enough and not descriptive or laudatory. Professor Llewelyn pointed out the possibility that trademarks could be used in an unfair manner, to bully other companies into submissiveness. As an example he gave KFC who sued an neighbourhood restaurant for infringement of the use of the trademarked term 'family feast'. He draw the history of Hong Kong artist Michael Lau and his relation to trademarks/bootlegs.

Genericide was discusses as well. Escalator, tabloid were generic names, but not roller blades.

Then the subject changed to geographical indications. The danger always lurks that two states, such as Indonesia and Malaysia start fighting over a term for food: such as who owns Nasi Lemak.

The territorial nature of intellectual property rights were discussed.

Copyrights you obtain for nothing; but the flipside is that they only forbid the right to copy; and another challenge is the digital era, as you can read in "Free", the book by Chris Anderson. Professor Llewelyn referred to China's threats to sue over fake terracotta warriors, as a subject that is outside the scope of copyrights. Professor Llewelyn compared it with the Egyptians that want to copyright the pyramids.
Normal copyrights are the life of the creator plus 50 years (China, which is TRIPs standard) or 70 years (many countries). In the UK there is special legislation for the play 'Peter Pan, or the boy who whould not grow up' to give it perpetual copyright in order to finance the Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Among intellectual property rights are strange creatures, such as database rights.
And many new players such as UNESCO are getting in to the act as well to protect rather exotic new intellectual property rights.

Intellectual property rights are liabilities, unless you do something with them. Commercialisation is getting more popular.

There are only five countries in the world with a net balance of payment: US, UK, Japan, Sweden and France. China has taken this well into account and makes sure that it is self innovating in order to avoid to pay too much royalities.

When one analyses intellectual property rights one can do it from many perspectives. An academic (access to information) has another perspective than an author of a book (control of information). Professor Llewelyn told about a student in Beijing who asked him to sign a copy of his book that was "better bound than [his publisher] Sweet & Maxwell."

Anti-competition law is becoming more important in intellectual property right law. Professor Llewelyn advocates a balance between extremes.

A development we must take an eye on is according to Llewelyn developing countries, such as India, that demand green technology of the developed world.

Hong Kong lawyers were always more interested in transactions of IPRs, registering etc. than in advising them about how to best exploit their IPRs.

In 60 minutes Professor Llewelyn covered a lot of ground. Ron Yu asked him whether IPRs are not getting too complicated for the average consumer. Professor Llewelyn answered: "Yes and also too complicated for the experts."

IP Dragon asked him about his take on the new international IPR forum ACTA, and whether it would be a threat to forums such as WIPO and WTO's TRIPs? Professor Llewelyn answered that he does not like the new forum, it will be more complicated.

So there will be a great need for people who can explain and illuminate these complicated issues in an inspiring way in the future, just like Professor Llewelyn.
continue reading ...

Friday, October 23, 2009

Massive Chinese Copyright Trade at Frankfurt Book Fair

"Die Chinesen sind da," ("The Chinese are there", in German) was the motto of the biggest book fair in the world: the Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 6-10, 2009). China was Guest of Honour and the Chinese book publishers did show themselves prominently: "Chinese publishers have exported 1,310 copyright items, and imported 882 titles to foreign counterparts."

Read the Xinhua article, via China.org.cn, here and see the Frankfurter Buchmesse's Guest of Honour site here.
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Thursday, October 22, 2009

China Written Works Copyright Society Objects Google Settlement

The China Written Works Copyright Society, representing 570 Chinese authors, objects to be included in the Google Class Action Settlement, between Google and US authors and publishers. They claim that the copyright of the Chinese authors is infringed. Read Elaine Kurtenbach's article with Bonnie Cao and Ji Chen, for Associated Press here.
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Thursday, September 03, 2009

HK Government Wants Your Views on Copyright Tribunal Rules

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Which direction should the Copyright Tribunal Rules go?

Since 1999 Hong Kong uses a Copyright Tribunal, which is an independent and quasi-judicial body established under the Copyright Ordinance to hear and resolve disputes about:

- Licensing schemes;
- Licensing by licensing bodies;
- Determining the award for employees for using his/her work outside reasonable contemplation;
- Obtaining Tribunal's consent on behalf of owners of right of reproduction of a performance or on behalf of the owner of the performers' rental rights;
- Applications for determination of equitable remuneration to persons entitled to restrain rental by virtue of commencement of section 10 of the Intellectual Property (World Trade Organisation Amendments) Ordinance 1996;
- Applications for determination of compensation arising from contrary rights as a result of the commencement of the Copyright Ordinance.
See more about the scope of the Copyright Tribunal here.

The current Copyright Tribunal Rules you can find here.

Key proposals on the drafting approach and direction are:
* applying the relevant principles of the Civil Justice Reform as the fundamental value of dispute resolution before the tribunal;
* prescribing one standard procedure and application form for all types of applications/references before the tribunal;
* empowering the tribunal to exercise active case management;
* promoting alternative dispute resolution;
* empowering a single member of the tribunal to exercise certain adjudication powers;
* using practice directions to regulate proceedings before the tribunal, if appropriate; and
* prescribing a set of self-contained rules.

Public consulation closes September 30th, see here.
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