What is the root cause of frequent copyright disputes?

Some time ago, the music prosecution of millet Pirates of the broadcast, broadcast 260 million yuan were punished, the headlines today also been investigated by the State Copyright Bureau investigation ... ... Copyright litigation and disputes frequently aroused widespread public concern.

A leaf known autumn. In fact, with the continuous emergence of new technologies and new models, copyright disputes have shown a rapid upward trend, and the number of intellectual property litigations including copyrights can be described as high. In 2013, the Supreme People's Court accepted 11,016 IPR cases and courts of all levels concluded 100,000 IPR cases of first instance.

The complexity and breadth of copyright disputes are also evident in the frequent practice of law enforcement in various countries in the world. Almost every year in the United States since the beginning of this century, there have been amendments to the Copyright Law. The laws relating to copyrights in Japan and South Korea have been amended 26 times and 18 times respectively. The Copyright Law of China was revised in 2001 and 2010, respectively, and is currently undergoing the third revision.

What is the root cause of frequent copyright disputes? China's "Copyright Law" the third amendment can bring any surprise? In this regard, 21st Century Business Herald reporter interviewed on July 3 an associate professor of intellectual property research center of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, and the third revision of the draft copyright law draft of the expert proposal draft team Xiong Qi.

"Law enforcement + mechanism innovation" simultaneously

"21st Century": The copyright laws revision activities of various major countries in the world are frequent. The United States has amendments almost every year. Japan has revised 26 times, South Korea has 18 times, France has been this century for four times, and China is currently carrying out the third time modify. What are the underlying reasons for frequent practice?

Xiong Qi: The frequent revision of the copyright law, on the one hand, is the emerging business model brought by the ever-changing propagation technology, but also poses challenges to the traditional legal relationship of copyright. On the other hand, the copyright industry and the Internet industry The game of interests of the copyright rules is getting hotter day by day, and all parties are striving for copyright mechanisms that are more conducive to their own business model. Therefore, frequent revision is not only based on the response to communication technologies, but also for the distribution of benefits.

"21st Century": Correspondingly with the frequent revision of the law in different countries, there are many cases of copyright disputes around the world. Internationally, Google, Youtube and other courts are the "regulars" of the courts. In China, the most recent period, And other related copyright disputes caused widespread concern. Do you think this is an isolated event or is the ecology of the copyright-related industries changed?

Xiong Qi: "Today's headlines" incident involves copyright issues reproduced and excerpted in the online environment. This incident can be said that the Internet industry fully involved in the copyright industry, the inevitable result.

Today, with the flourishing development of mobile Internet, the public has gotten the mainstream of news and information through mobile phones and tablet PCs. The emergence of today's headlines and a series of network news push platforms is just the result of the diversion of such information dissemination channels. However, as there is still room for improvement in legislation and enforcement of copyright in our country, the cooperation between the traditional publishing industry represented by publishing houses and magazines and the internet industry represented by network service providers has not been stable yet, The legal relationship of paying content providers is not yet perfect, so the problem of mass infringement under the network environment appears to be more serious.

Under such circumstances, on the one hand, efforts should be made to strengthen the enforcement of copyright on the Internet to force Internet service providers who try to free ride to respect the reproduced and approved copyright permission procedures; on the other hand, they need to improve our collective management system and lead network service providers and Content providers to establish a stable cooperation mechanism.

"21st Century": In the past, the amount of compensation for copyright-related litigation generally did not exceed 1 million yuan, but the fined amount of fast-broadcasting amounted to 260 million yuan. Where is the difference, what signal is revealed?

Xiong Qi: copyright infringement in the network environment has no time difference and no geographical features, so the consequences of infringement caused by the damage is often greater, China's "Copyright Law," the third amendment to join the punitive damages and increase the amount of compensation for infringement Has become a consensus, so this high fine is not a bad thing, its role is to increase the cost of infringement, requiring Internet service providers to provide services in accordance with copyright norms.

Private rules double-edged sword

"21st Century": You mentioned in a thesis that copyright law is the product of the game of interests among all parties and is not a rational academic. Do you think the current focus of the interests of all parties where the game?

Xiong Qi: The game of interests in the revision of the Copyright Law, that is, occurs within the main body of the copyright industry, also between the copyright industry and the Internet industry. No matter under any technical condition or any historical stage, the interests of all parties concerning the rules of copyright game always focus on the definition of copyright category and ownership.

The copyrighted party will try to expand the category of rights in order to obtain more benefits, while the new entrants want to change the rules of rights allocation in order to obtain new rights or to avoid obligations. For example, the third revision of copyright law in China on the network service provider censorship obligations, the scope of extension of copyright collective management, the production of audio-visual products, such as the existence of the statutory clearance, all related to the above two aspects.

"21st Century": as the third revision of the "Copyright Law" expert draft drafting team members, do you think this revision can solve what concerns the outside world?

Xiong Qi: This revision law is different from the past for our country. It is no longer the product of passive response to the requirements of developed countries or accessions to international conventions. Instead, it takes the initiative to respond. Therefore, the most controversial issues discussed in this revision are: And our local copyright industry and related industries contact content. Apart from the old problems exposed in the implementation of the current copyright law, the characteristics of this amendment from the past are the concerns of all parties on the copyright trading mechanism. For example, as a collective management system of centralized copyright licensing system, The copyright licensing model of the relationship between producers of phonograms and the improvement of the legal requirements relating to copyright licensing contracts are all issues that will be valued today when the copyright industry embarks on the fast track.

"21st Century": As a way of coping with the failure of copyright law, the private copyright rules have a lot of applications in the practice at home and abroad. For copyright-related industries, what are the opportunities and challenges that private copyright rules have for stakeholders?

Xiong Qi: Private Rules Appear in Practice as Obtaining Rights to Use Technical Measures Users are required to accept obligations that go beyond the legal scope of copyright. For example, users need to click "Agree" before installing software on their computers and smartphones, and online users register online platforms. Accept all terms of the service provider to proceed with installing the software or using the Platform Services. In complex protocol content, software or platform service providers often change the configuration of copyrights.

The advantage of private rules is that they can make up for the deficiencies of the copyright law according to the actual situation, but may also help some of the rights holders or service providers with market advantage to gain monopoly.

Social Network Copyright Challenges

"21st Century": What challenges do the use of social tools bring to copyright protection? How to deal with it?

Xiong Qi: As a social network service involving billions of people around the world, social network aims to replicate the reality of the social relations among people in the network, which inevitably contains a large number of Information dissemination and sharing. Therefore, the "friend" platform provided by the social network is only a prerequisite function. After constructing the network social circle, users still communicate and share information with each other. Since a large number of works are covered by copyrighted works, how to make the copyright law that originated in the printing age fit into the social network and how to define the copyright ownership of the works in the social network has become a new challenge for the copyright law.

This challenge focuses on two aspects. First, because social networks act as a semi-closed "community," with the initial aim of exchanging information among "acquaintances" (friends), the dissemination of information among them is generally considered Sharing between limited subjects. According to the Copyright Law, there is no limit to the sharing of works within a limited scope. However, due to the non-geographical nature of online social relationships, the scope of the sharing of works can not be controlled in fact, and the objects of communication of works are not limited to a limited scope at all. Therefore, the existing standards for the definition and protection of copyright are no longer applicable to the dissemination of information in social networks. Second, the information dissemination methods of social networks are characterized by free dissemination and free sharing, making the traditional copyright licensing mechanism incompatible with social networks. Internet service providers to social network users free to provide all kinds of works designed to increase the number of users and the frequency of social networks; but copyright works under the precondition of licensing, is designed to protect the business directly through the licensing of profits mode. Applying the traditional copyright licensing mechanism to social networks will lead to the separation of licensing efficiency from transmission efficiency, which will result in the users being exposed to the risk of infringement and the inevitable spread of social networks.

In view of existing solutions, social network service providers often require users to consent to their published works (such as texts, pictures, etc.) freely and freely distributed on social networks when they sign up for the social network platform so as to prevent other users from forwarding However, in reality, there are still cases in which social network users spread the works of others illegally on the social network platform.

"21st Century": What is the investment opportunity in the current copyright industry?

Xiong Qi: From the development trend of the copyright industry and the copyright system, the increasingly strict copyright protection is undoubtedly the trend of the times. Therefore, whether it is for network service providers or content providers, the establishment of legal and stable cooperation as soon as possible is the only way to avoid the risk of infringement compensation and enlarge the market space.

After all, the Internet is the domain of "content is king." Who can get more sources of work, who can have a larger user base, and thus gain revenue. Therefore, the investment trends of the copyright industries in developed countries and in our country are that ISPs have invested in upstream content providers, sources of their works have been acquired, and content providers have invested in online platforms to obtain distribution channels.