On March 30, the Forum on IP and Digital Economy was held in Boao, Hainan during the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2023. The participants discussed the new challenges and opportunities brought by the new forms, models and scenarios of digital culture for copyright protection and utilization.

Mr. Zhang Jianchun, Vice Minister of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, attended the forum and pointed out that since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has upgraded the development of digital economy to a national strategy and put forth a series of important decisions and arrangements, leading to the rapid development of China’s digital economy. China, in copyright area, has always embraced technological progress with a positive and open attitude. Especially in the first decade of the New Era, China’s copyright undertakings have achieved breakthroughs, progresses, and historic achievements, which have played an increasingly important role in advancing a new round of scientific and technological revolution and promoting the development of digital economy.

Mr. Zhang Jianchun emphasized that the rapid development of digital economy has brought unprecedented opportunities to copyright industries, especially online copyright industries. The next steps are to firmly grasp the new opportunities the development of digital economy has brought and continuously modernize copyright governance system and capabilities so as to provide strong support for the high-quality development of copyright industries. It is imperative to quickly improve copyright protection system in the era of digital economy, optimize copyright protection mechanism for new business forms and models, guide digital cultural industries to strengthen copyright innovation, utilization, protection, management and services, deepen international cooperation in copyright protection in the era of digital economy and showcase China’s practice of digital copyright protection and development.

According to the data, the year 2022 witnessed over 6.3 millions copyright registrations in China , nearly tripling in a decade, with software registrations growing by 29.4% on average annually. In 2021, the added value of China’s copyright industries was 8.48 trillion yuan, accounting for 7.41% of GDP. In particular, the market size of online copyright industries exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan.

Mr. Shen Changyu, Commissioner of the China National Intellectual Property Administration, stated that it is important to make IP work in better enabling the development of digital economy, deepening exchanges and cooperation to jointly build a more dynamic global IP ecosystem and a better future at large.

Ms. Wang Binying, Deputy Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization, believes that IP is one of the key drivers of frontier technological innovation in digital era, which means things need to be viewed from the perspective of the entire IP system to promote innovation and creativity as well as economic and social development.

The Forum on IP and Digital Economy, co-organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Boao Forum for Asia, is an important part of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2023 aw well as the activities of World IP Day 2023. The forum focuses on IP-related issues in digital world and explores the challenges and opportunities that frontier technologies such as AI, big data, and cloud computing have brought to IP system.