EN中文
You are here: Home > News > Top News
2019 National Online Copyright Protection and Development Conference Held in Beijing
2019-05-21

On April 26, the 19th World Intellectual Property Day, the National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC) held 2019 National Conference on Copyright Protection and Development in Digital Environment with the theme of “Compliance and Innovation: Stringent Copyright Protection and Industry Development in Digital Environment for a New Era”. On the conference, NCAC, Cyberspace Administration of China, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and Ministry of Public Security jointly launched “Jianwang 2019” campaign, which aimed to regulate copyright order in priority areas including the integrated media development, theatrical films, stream media, and photo market. It was also the 15th consecutive “Jianwang” campaign.

Mr. Francis Gurry, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), sent his congratulations to the conference through a video. He said that creative industries in China was booming and made remarkable achievements. Taking 2018 as an example, the total number of copyright registrations in China was about 3.5 million, an increase of 25.83% year-on-year, among which the number of computer software registrations exceeded 1 million. Contributing greatly to the economy, these achievements were made by the practitioners in these industries. The theme of the conference this year, identified by NCAC, was of great significance. It was expected that China could continue to play a leading role in innovating new business model of the Internet industry and making copyright the basis of a new business model in a creative way.

Mr. Yu Cike, Director General of Copyright Department of NCAC, delivered a keynote speech in the conference. He said that strict protection of online copyright was a priority, since it was not only the fundamental requirement of rule of law, but also the inherent logic of copyright protection. It was necessary to achieve “four protections”: Firstly, protection with increasing strength. As China was still in the peak period of copyright conflicts and disputes, copyright protection should be strengthened rather than being weakened; secondly, protection with a wide range, which meant to protect all copyright subjects, objects and activities according to law; thirdly, protection to a proper degree. Copyright protection should be based on the reality that China was a developing country at the primary stage of socialism. The protection should not be weakened or over-strengthened. Fourthly, effective protection. It was necessary to actively promote the third revision of the Copyright Law, introduce punitive compensations, and solve the problems of difficulty in collecting proof, long cycle, high costs, low compensations, and poor effects in copyright protection through legal system. On healthy development of online copyright industry, he said that three tasks should be done: to continue to promote rapid development of online copyright industry and establish a good online copyright ecosystem; to promote coordinated and sustainable development of regional online copyright industry and foster the development of key copyright industry; to encourage the innovation of online copyright industry and focus on promoting the innovation and development of new products and new forms of online copyright.

On the conference, NCAC and the National Office Against Pornography and Illegal Publications jointly announced Top Ten Cases of Combating Infringement and Piracy in 2018. China Academy of Information and Communications Technology released 2018 Annual Report of Online Copyright Protection in China. The Research Base of Online Copyright Industry of the National Copyright Administration released 2018 Report of Online Copyright Industry Development in China. The Chinese Academy of Press and Publication released the Result of Economic Contributions of Copyright Industry in 2017 in China. In recent years, NCAC had been committed to creating a new path for copyright protection and industry development by developing the industry with the protection of copyright and protecting copyright in the process of industry development. Since 2005, the NCAC has conducted consecutive “Jianwang” campaigns against online infringement and piracy in cooperation with relevant authorities. The copyright law enforcement authorities at various levels investigated 6,647 online infringement and piracy cases, closed 6266 infringement and piracy websites according to law, and transferred 609 cases to judicial authorities for criminal investigations. A number of major infringement and piracy cases were handled, such as QvodPlayer infringement case, and online copyright order had been improved basically. As online copyright environment optimized, rapid development of online copyright industry was secured. A survey by the Research Base of Online Copyright Industry of NCAC shows the scale of online copyright industry in China reached RMB 742.3 billion yuan in 2018, an increase of 16.6% compared with RMB 636.45 billion yuan in 2017. Among these, the three pillars of online copyright industry in China--online news media, online games and online videos, accounted for 85%. In 2018, the total user fees for online copyright industry in China nearly reached RMB 368.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.8%. The proportion of user payment in the market increased from 44% in 2016 to nearly 50% in 2018. According to the survey results of the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication, the industry added value of copyright industry in China in 2017 was RMB 6081.092 billion yuan, accounting for 7.35% of the national GDP. In 2017, the number of urban employers in core copyright industry in China was 9,149,800 people, accounting for 54.7% of that of the whole copyright industry in China.

On the conference, Professor Wu Handong, former President of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law; Wan Jie, Chairman of Artron Art Group; Zhang Wen, President of Beijing Internet Court; Tang Jia San Shao (with a true name of Zhang Wei), a well-known online literary writer; Liu Hongbo, Deputy Director of the Legal Affairs Department of Beijing Organizing Committee for Olympic Winter Games; Tang Weihong, Vice President of People’s Daily Online; Victor Liang, Vice President of Baidu; Sun Jungong, Vice President of Alibaba Group and Chief of Intellectual Property Research Institute; Jiang Bo, Vice President of Legal Affairs Department of Tencent; Chen Rui, Chairman of Bilibili, and Wu Guanyong, Chairman of Firstbrave Information Technology Co., Ltd.(Shanghai), shared their experience on copyright protection and industry development.

On the conference, the Media Copyright Protection Alliance announced copyright protection initiative. The National Copyright Exchange Center Alliance held a signing ceremony. The Theatrical Film Copyright Protection Alliance and the Cultural and Creative Industry Copyright Protection Collaboration Alliance were formally established. Live broadcast of the conference could be found on the Weibo and WeChat of the NCAC, China Economic Net, China Science and Technology Daily, Mi Gu Live, Sina.com, “Feng-Live” of IFeng.com, Tencent News APP, Netease News APP, Sohu News APP and other platforms.