On the morning of April 28, the State Council Information Office held a press conference on China’s intellectual property rights development of 2018 in Beijing. Mr. Shen Changyu, Commissioner of China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), Mr. Zhao Gang, Deputy Commissioner of China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), and Mr. Yu Cike, Director General of Copyright Department of National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC), attended the conference and answered questions. The conference was hosted by Ms. Shou Xiaoli from the Press Bureau of the State Council Information Office.

With regard to the piracy of theatrical films released in the Spring Festival, Yu Cike said during the Spring Festival of 2019, eight domestic films were released in cinemas in China, which were widely popular and set new records of box office in the Spring Festival. However, movie piracy got concerns from the society. In order to keep good copyright order and ensure healthy and prosperous development of the film industry, NCAC, together with National Film Administration, Ministry of Public Security, Cyberspace Administration of China, and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, had taken multiple effective measures to strengthen the copyright protection of theatrical films.

Firstly, spread of illegal recording and infringement was severely cracked down. NCAC and the Ministry of Public Security set up a task force to deal with cases in 11 key provinces and cities such as Beijing and Jiangsu, targeting cinema camcording, and the distribution of piracy movies through various small websites, APPs, and e-commerce platforms. At present, NCAC and public security authorities had solved 22 major cases of pirating theatrical films, including “Fantasy” Video APP infringement case in Beijing, and a big camcording case in Yangzhou,　Jiangsu, which destroyed a criminal gang reproducing theatrical films and arrested 52 suspects.

Secondly, infringement weblinks were handled quickly. NCAC increased monitoring on film piracy through carefully screening the reporting from the public and quickly deleting infringing information. Up to now, more than 30,000 links involving Spring Festival film piracy have been deleted.

Thirdly, early warning of film copyright protection was strengthened. Since March, NCAC has announced two key lists of theatrical films for copyright protection, and arranged early warning for the protection of 15 theatrical films (including 7 overseas films) by requiring relevant network service providers to take effective measures to deal with infringement and piracy in a timely manner, which were applauded by film producers at home and abroad.

Fourthly, copyright protection and social governance was promoted. Through promoting the establishment of copyright protection alliance for theatrical films on World Intellectual Property Day on April 26, NCAC encouraged film producers and distributors to work with commercial websites for copyright cooperation, showing the strength of cooperation in protecting copyrights.  

For the next step, NCAC will launch a special campaign on theatrical film copyright protection to further increase efforts to crack down on infringement and piracy, so as to strengthen self-discipline and copyrights protection in the film and television industry and encourage related enterprises to shoulder major responsibilities. At the same time, considering that currently a large number of small piracy websites set up their servers overseas, NCAC will strengthen cross-border law enforcement cooperation with relevant countries and regions to jointly crack down website infringement and piracy.