Judicial Interpretation on the Right to Network Dissemination of Information, interpretation, analysis, Supreme People’s Court, Regulation on Several Issues Concerning Application of Law in Hearing Civil Disputes on the Right to Network Dissemination of Information, history, development, China Academy of Science, NCFC, NSFNET, copyright law, Interpretation on

(By You Yunting) On December 26 2012, China’s Supreme People’s Court published the “Regulation on Several Issues Concerning Application of Law in Hearing Civil Disputes on the Right to Network Dissemination of Information” (the “Network Interpretation”). The Network Interpretation came into effect on January 1, 2013. Therefore, in today and tomorrow’s posts, we are going to share an introduction and interpretation of the new regulation

Part I: The history and development of the Network Interpretation

In April 1994, the China Academy of Sciences (CAS) connected its National Computing and Networking Facility of China (NCFC) directly with NSFNET, which marked the birth of China’s internet. This led to the rapid development of the internet and the promotion of the diffusion and communication of works online. This had a great influence to those traditional industries, like video, music, publishing, and software, whose interests depend on the duplication and publication of tangible media. But, the Copyright Law at that time had no specific regulation on this subject. Considering this fact, the Supreme People’s Court therefore issued the Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning Application of Law in Hearing Cases Related to Computer Network Copyright Disputes, which focuses on network copyright protection. Later on, this interpretation was revised twice, in December 2003 and November 2006 respectively. This interpretation has played an important role in the protection of copyrights online.

In fact, in addition to judicial interpretations, China also has its own administrative regulations on the right to network dissemination of information. In May 2006, the State Council passed the “The Regulation on Protection of the Right to Network Dissemination of Information” (the “Network Regulation”), which came into effect starting in July of that year. The main content of the Network Regulation is the “safe harbor principle,” under which the Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) can be exempted from liability when it deletes or blocks all the infringing content on its website after receiving the infringement notice. Due to this regulation, the internet industry has experienced great development. What may have been unexpected by the regulation makers, however, is that the interests of traditional copyright holders have suffered a big shock.

For this reason, on December 26 2009, the Standing Committee of National People’s Congress passed the Tort Liability Law, which came into effect on July 1, 2010 and has a special chapter for online infringement. According to the chapter, the ISP must take joint liability when it is aware of the infringement or damage caused by others through online activities but has not taken measures accordingly. This article has balanced the influence coming from the safe harbor principle, specifying the method for ISPs to assume liability.

The promulgation of the Network Regulation and Tort Liability Law have been playing a key role in the healthy development of China’s internet industry, but some of their regulations remain too abstract. And, after years of robust development and the explosion of sharing technology, traditional copyright holders have had to face greater and greater shock over the damage caused to their rights. Furthermore, the courts hearing such cases often feel they have no adequate legal grounds for rendering judgment. For this reason, starting in 2010, the Supreme People’s Court began intently researching a Judicial Interpretation on Online Copyright Protection. Additionally, in April 2012, the Supreme Court published a public draft of the Network Interpretation, which was promulgated in December 2013 after receiving public opinions.

Lawyer Contacts

You Yunting：86-21-52134918  youyunting@debund.com/yytbest@gmail.com

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