Four controversial amendments to copyright law three times

Absrtact: The computer font industry is struggling, rooted in the lack of copyright protection. The use of copyright law to amend the draft is seeking public opinion, the Chinese Information Society and the font company lobbied jointly to publish the Copyright Law (Amendment) part of the

The computer font industry is struggling, rooted in the lack of copyright protection. The use of copyright law to amend the draft is seeking public opinion, the Chinese Information society and font companies jointly "lobbying", issued the "Copyright Law" (Amendment) Some of the relevant provisions of the proposed amendments.

Founder Electronics Limited, founder of Peking University, is one of the "lobbyists" for this major legal amendment. Its "lobbying" impulse stems from several copyright disputes over the past few years about founder fonts. In the recent symposium on IPR Justice in China and the United States, founder cases also became the focus of discussion between judges and experts.

In 2007, founder employees in the U.S. Blizzard Entertainment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter called Blizzard) produced by the Chinese version of World of Warcraft, the game used in Chinese fonts have not been authorized, both sides in court, founder to the blizzard claim 408 million yuan. Today, this "Sino-American It intellectual property first case" still failed to satisfy both parties.

2008, founder found that the company in the shampoo bottle with "founder Coarse Qian Simplified" among the two words "rejoice", did not pay a penny, founder of the company to sue the court. But the first and second trial results are very different: first instance, founder Qian Body font can be overall protection, the word is not protected;

It can be seen that, in the absence of legal provisions of the law, the Court to determine the specific case of font infringement, which brings a lot of inconvenience and uncertainty of the rights of the font. Therefore, the "lobbyist" 's proposal mainly has two points: first, in the copyright law, the explicit design belongs to the art works, and the other is the computer software.

Such "lobbying" is only a microcosm of the period during which the Copyright law Amendment Bill was sought.

Three revisions

Shaohong, deputy Director of Press and publication, and Deputy secretary of the State Copyright administration, disclosed at the first meeting of the Committee of Experts on the revision of copyright law that the Copyright Act was amended twice in 2001 and 2010. The first was the need to join the World Trade Organization, and the second was a passive amendment to the ruling on IPR disputes between China and the United States.

Shaohong admits that these two revisions are both passive and localized. Therefore, in recent years, the proposal of amending the copyright law has become the focus of the community in the field of intellectual property. These appeals come not only from the judicial, administrative and pedagogical research sectors, but also from copyright owners and industry.

Chao, the Commissioner of State copyright, recalls that the First Amendment started in 1998, but was questioned when it was sent to the NPC for discussion, because it failed to refer to the Internet and did not change the rules for not paying for the use of the broadcast works. Finally, the State Department chose to withdraw the manuscript.

As a matter of fact, this amendment is a choice to join the WTO. Although more than 30 changes, but did not weaken the original law of the planned economy, but also questioned the lack of sense of the era. Since then, due to time constraints, the revised draft of the 2000 debate on the content of the Internet is briefly mentioned, but also the introduction of other relevant regulations to supplement.

However, as far as music works are concerned, this time the amendment has made a breakthrough to make it clear that the broadcast of the recorded works, although not authorized by the copyright owner, must be paid. Although it was not until 10 that CCTV became the first truly paid broadcaster, its legislative intent could not be ignored.

The cause of the Second Amendment to the Copyright Act in 2010 was also related to the WTO, and therefore this time the change was made only in respect of the two provisions of the WTO ruling that China violated the spirit of the Convention, the first is the repeal of article fourth, and the other is that copyright can be mortgaged under the property law

One of the behind-the-scenes drivers of the third amendment is the famous writer Kangkang. On the opening day of the 2011 CPPCC meeting, Kangkang handed a letter to Premier Wen Jiabao, hoping that the prime Minister would pay attention to IPR protection. March 4, the Prime Minister in the letter to make instructions, the State Council for Legal Affairs to amend the "copyright law" to pay attention to and attention.

July 13, 2011, the third revision of copyright law officially opened. The National Copyright Administration has commissioned the Intellectual Property Institute of Renmin University of China, the Intellectual Property Research center of the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Zhongnan Intellectual Property Research Center to draft a revised expert proposal for copyright law. March 31, 2012, the State Copyright Administration issued the "Copyright law (draft)."

Four controversies

Ziqiang, director of the National Copyright Administration, said in a recent symposium on intellectual Property Justice in China and the United States that the draft proposal, which lasted three months, was divided into eight chapters and 88 articles. In Ziqiang's view, the main feature of the proposed draft is four changes in comparison with the current law.

First, a major adjustment of style, from the present law six chapter 61 revise to revise draft eight chapter 88, the entire legal system textual structure has made the important adjustment; Secondly, the rights of copyright and related rights have been increased in different degrees, and the third is to adjust the copyright authorization mechanism and market trading rules; Four is to increase the copyright protection, increase the administrative law enforcement measures, improve the standards of legal licensing, increased the provisions on punitive damages.

Ziqiang revealed that during the draft to the public, the director of the State Copyright Bureau sent a letter to the 37 legislative and administrative social teams, ministers and deputy ministers of the Ministry of Justice, and at the same time sent a written letter of advice to 48 ministries.

By the end of May, nearly 1600 different views had been received, among them, 48 opinions, 29 opinions of the administrative organs of the copyright, 3 opinions of the judiciary, 6 opinions of scientific research units, and 123 submissions from all walks of life from all over the world, including government, national organizations and industry.

Ziqiang said that the most controversial provisions of this Law also have four aspects: first, concerning the statutory licensing system, the provisions of articles 46th and 48th of the current draft, and the provisions on collective management, that is, the provisions on extension in the existing draft article 60th; The third is 69th, about ISPs ' liability for safe haven; four is 70th. , it is difficult for authors to exercise rights, multiple use, repeated use, extensive use of the work of the user's legal liability.

The controversy is much more than that. Zhang Ping, a professor of intellectual property at Peking University, argues that compensation for IPR infringement in China is too low and the cost of litigation is high, which is detrimental to IPR protection. "The Patent law Revision legal compensation has been raised to 1 million, and the trademark laws are also discussed, raised to 1 million, and the Copyright Act is raised to 1 million." ”

But even raising to 1 million is not enough to compensate. "Such companies like Fangzheng do have high intellectual property rights protections, such as founder V. Blizzard, founder 408 million's claim, and first instance compensation only supports 1.4 million." Such a case would require the judge to give an evidentiary consideration from the evidence and the method of loss. "said Zhang.

February 2010, the Beijing High Court first trial decision founder electronic win, but only the defendant compensation 1.4 million yuan and reasonable litigation expenses 50,000 yuan. In fact, founder Electronics for the case to pay the lawsuit fee has been as high as 4.17 million yuan, legal fees, notarial fees and other costs more than 1 million yuan. Zhang Ping suggested that because of the complexity of IPR infringement, it is difficult to have a uniform standard of compensation, which should mainly be based on the discretion of judges in specific cases.

Benefit reconstruction

The scope of the right to this extinction, Ziqiang said, the press and publication Administration of the National Copyright Office in the process of law, not any one of the interests of the representative, but the balance of different interests. The process of amending the copyright law is the reconstruction of a kind of interest order--the balance and coordination among the stakeholders, the communicators and the users.

Take the font industry as an example. In the 90 's, the Chinese font design of the golden Age, the domestic fonts manufacturers large and small dozens of, more well-known founder, Han instrument, Chinese, huaguang, Zhong Yi, four-pass, the Great Wall and so on. In just 10 years, the development to nearly 200 kinds of different font styles of nearly 400 fonts.

At that time Han instrument Company's high-end products bundled in the imagesetter sales, each set price of sixty thousand or seventy thousand Yuan. But it didn't go well, piracy came. Originally 1000 yuan A set of fonts, due to piracy intrusion, discount hit to 50 Yuan set, a year's sales can not be tens of thousands of yuan. In the past 10 years, few customers have voluntarily Shanghanyi to pay the usage fee of the font.

Most companies swallow up on piracy. 2003, founder of "Orchid Pavilion font" for the first time through the law to combat piracy. Founder of the Business department deputy general manager Huang Xuejun revealed that the current national 10 people above the size of the font design enterprises only four or five, basically in a stagnant or barely maintained state. Founder of the font is currently only a typeface designer less than 30 people.

Founder font of the main source of income into two pieces. First, the press and publishing industry to pay for the use of the library, the second is to Microsoft, Samsung, Coca-Cola, Yili and other large enterprises to authorize the use of the font. The two income accounts for about half of each, the latter slightly more. "Some enterprises in the commercial activities of a large number of infringement of the use of fonts, but do not pay any fees." ”

Zhang Jin, a professor at China University of Political Science and political science, said that the Chinese copyright law does not separately prescribe practical works of art, and that practical works of art are now included in the art works. Therefore, in the revised draft of copyright law, the addition of practical works of art, the work is defined as "refers to the actual use of the works of art", the protection period of this work is 25 years. "The practicality of the text does not negate the character of the font design." "Zhang Jin said.

The development of the Internet has exacerbated the wanton piracy. It is said that Baidu search "founder fonts Download" and "Founder Font Download", there are more than 60,000 download links, but none of them are founder authorized. However, a GB gb2312-80 font has 6,763 Chinese characters, according to the degree of difficulty, the cost is 200,000 ~50 million yuan, some even higher.