By You Yunting
The competition among Chinese tech websites is fierce, and in order to gain an advantage in the battle, many translate essays from American blogs into Chinese and publish them on their websites without permission from the author. Recently, apple4.us, a China-based tech blog, announced they will no longer translate essays without authorization. Furthermore, they will withdraw all past unauthorized translations and ask permission from the authors.
Here is the whole story: Lawrence Li (李如一), an author for apple4.us, translated What Is and Is Not a Technology Company by Alex Payne without authorization and posted it on apple4.us. An editor of Donews, a tech blog under Qianxiang, asked Mr. Li and another apple4.us writer, Hu Wei, for authorization to reproduce the translated essay. Despite never giving confirmation, Mr. Lee later found that Donews had reproduced the essay.
As reflected by Mr. Lee: Although I do not agree with such behavior, examining my own conscience I know that apple4.us has become full of such essays since its founding. We are not a commercial website, but it is surely wrong to translate and publish such essays without authorization.
Mr. Lee also posted the following message on the website. Starting 5th November 2012, our website will no longer translate any foreign language articles without authorization. I have taken down the links for the Chinese versions of the following two essays, and have sent letters to the authors to request licenses for translation and reproduction.
Alex Payne: What Is and Is Not a Technology Company
Marcus Geduld: What is the difference between a pseudo-intellectual and an intellectual?
I would also like to apologize to Mr. Payne, Mr. Geduld, and the readers of this site. If approval for translation and reproduction are received, I will repost these essays. As of this post, Mr. Payne and Mr. Geduld have sent me their approval to post translations of their essays on apple4.us.
This incident also reveals the gap in the conscious on IP protection between online media in China and advanced countries. Online media has developed very quickly in China, and the competition among different providers is also very fierce. For this reason, websites are focusing on attracting readers’ attention with high quality content, and excellent original essays by American media are a good source of material. The content of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, TechCrunch, GigaOM, and VentureBeat can often be seen on Chinese websites in Chinese although no approval has been given. A similar case can be found in the field of subtitle translations. Videos of American television shows can usually be downloaded in China through BT with embedded Chinese subtitles one day after their premier in America. Of course, such infringement appears to be less common in traditional media, like newspapers, magazines, and television, but fast development and fierce competition on the Internet has led many Chinese websites to have poor consciousness of copyright.
In theory, because China is a contracting party of the Berne Convention, the copyright of an American company or citizen’s work also receives protection in China. Additionally, according to China’s Copyright Law, the translation right is also kind of copyright, and approval must be received from the copyright holder in order to translate a work and then publish it on the Internet. As the free sharing culture in China is very strong, however, infringement against the right to reproduce in the copyright is ubiquitous, and infringement of the relatively weak translation right has not attracted much attention.
In conclusion, hopefully, the statement of Lawrence Li and apple4.us will awaken China’s online media and cause it to pay more attention to copyright. If the readers of this website discover their copyright has been infringed in this way, you can also contact us. As Chinese admitted lawyers, we can help you combat this kind of infringement.
Lawyer Contacts
You Yunting：86-21-52134918 youyunting@debund.com/yytbest@gmail.com
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