Why China Should Revoke the Regulations Which May Put All the Piracy Selling Vendors into Jail?

(By You Yunting) You could find the vendors selling the pirated films, TV dramas, music or software in almost each single street in the cities of China. And according to the current regulation that the amount of the sales totaled 500 discs could be prosecuted for the criminal law violation, any vendors who has been selling the pirated discs for at least one month could constitute the crime of copyright infringement, and to be sent in to jail. Despite what the vendor has done may damage the IPR of the copyright holder, it is fair to combat them under the laws and regulations. But it seems that the existing judicial interpretation has a too wide governing scope, and could have damaged the purpose of the Criminal law. And in the practices, the vendors who have been prosecuted for their piracy selling could be less than 1% of all. Thus it has made the vendors do not care the punishment regulated in the criminal law, and that on the other hand has broken the principle “any violation against the criminal law shall be prosecuted and punished”, and thereafter it may promote the law enforcement upon the selection or the law enforcement in the political campaign or the rule of man. And the at the same time, it could harm the IPR protection.

READ MORE

How China Laws Provide on Song Covering in Talent Shows

By You Yunting

A question raised up for me on Weibo stating: should all the singing performances by the participants in talent shows be licensed by the copyright holder? And who shall take the infringement liability once it is accused by the right holder? Behind the question, the most heated news related to the topic is that Universal sent a lawyer’s letter to Li Daimo, the participant of The Voice of China, accusing his unlicensed performance of “You Exist in My Song”, the works of Universal’s singer. Also in the letter, the company demands the ceasing of the performance of the song, by both the participant and The Voice. The seemingly short question actually has many legal issues in it, and the following is my answer to them.

READ MORE

Parody on Copyrighted Works Could Be Infringement? I

the parodic portrait of ancient Chinese poet DU FU

By Albert Chen

On 7th June, 2012, the committee affiliated to Agencies for Cultural Affairs deliberated on the issues that could the derivative works and parody constitute the infringement to copyright (note: the link is in Chinese). And that marks the Japanese government facing up to the common problems KUSO in the country.

As a country with well-developed culture industry, Japan sees a large number of original cultural creations within the nation every year, including the cartoons, movies, games, etc. On the other hand, the derivatives of the existing works are also common in the country with the parody included. The trend of parody in Japan also influences the literature works of China, and thereby we see Lin Daiyu, the character in the noted A Dream in the Red Mansion, becomes a courtesan, the Monkey King begins to date with his master, and the generals in the Romance of Three Kingdoms have all been coquettes.

READ MORE