(By You Yunting) Within the World Intellectual Property Day approaching, Zhihu.com invited me to answer some questions about the popularization of intellectual property rights with the second topic below regarding what channels of online copyright enforcement would be available in China.

Yesterday, we discussed what are the difficulties in the online copyright enforcement in China. With different types of infringement, today I will discuss how to protect online copyright. Actually, there are three channels consisting of online criticism, complaints and litigation.

1. Criticism

Criticism, not a groundless “squalling”, here does not have many strong connotation. However, “Criticism” refers to addressing articles online to criticize the infringer and the infringing facts. After being criticized, lots of the infringers become aware of their mistakes and turn back from the copyright infringement. Do not   underestimate the function of criticism and it does seem to work actually. If the right holder was a bigger blogger who has a lot of fans, or if a bigger blogger is glad to help reposting the critical articles, it is likely that the criticism will be more efficient than that of complaints and litigation, for two reasons.

Firstly, it is important to gain good reputation in China and even around the world. When the bigger bloggers made criticism on the infringer and even such infringing became a public affair, the infringer may suffer from a tough time because of a bad reputation. However, as Confucius said “it is a great virtue to correct what you have done wrong”, if the infringer could correct the copyright infringement complying with the public opinion, a fault confessed is half redressed. Thus the infringer may transform his public image. Secondly, when the bigger bloggers made criticism on the infringer and even such infringing became a public affair, it is the infringement that falls into the scope of responsibilities backed by the copyright administrative departments. In the event that the infringer refused to correct his wrongs, the copyright administrative departments may have a serious talk with the infringer and criticize and educate him, requiring him to correct.

For instance, Han Han and two other writers had addressed criticism against Baidu over its online library, Wenku, claiming Wenku offered their works for free without permission. Since the criticism was posted online, it is overnight that Baidu deleted thousands of documents uploaded by its users. The work sufficiency in deletion is so great that surprised all of us.

2. Complaints.

There are three kinds of complaints resulting from organizations who have the right to handle down the complaints. The right holders of copyright can make complaints to the website operator, the administrative authorities and the police. If the right holder found out its works was infringed, there are following choices:

(1)   Making complaints to the website operators

Some big websites, such as Taobao, Weibo, Wechat and other portal sites, have a specific webpage for complaining and thus the infringer could make complaints in accordance with their rules. But the website operators are not a government or court in transaction processing. They would like not delete the infringing contents in the hope of their own commercial consideration. As such, their handlings of the complaints often annoy the complainants.

(2)   Making complaints to administrative authorities

The copyright administration department is charge of copyright administrative complaints. If it is the Internet games, the right holders may provide complaints to the Ministry of Culture. Because the well-known slow working efficiency of the governments and the local protectionism, the results of the complaints cannot achieve our expectations. However, occasionally, it may receive unexpected benefits.

For instance, when I was working at Cloudary Corporation, we complained a pirated literature website the time to catch a special program over piracy crack-down of the copyright administration. Thus, the pirated literature website which was operated for years was cracked down at the special program. Taking another example, when we made a complaint against a site of network game server, the local copyright administration came down quickly on the site of network game server and shut down the network game server. And, after a few days, we found that the site was reopened. Then we asked what happened but got the answer that the site was allowed to reopen by the copyright administration. Actually I do not know whether true or false, but the fact is that the site was reopened.

(3)   Making complaints to the police

The most effective complaint is made to the police, because the piracy dies away if the operators are into prison. However, the police offices are always devoting their efforts to maintain social stability and crack down on online rumor and “subversion” and thus they spend fewer efforts in pursuing piracy. As such, state-owned companies and bigger companies prefer making complaints to the police on the grounds that larger taxpayers could receive local protectionism. As for small companies, complaints to the police may be hopeless.

3. Civil Litigation

If the infringer had a certain economic strength or had high status, the efficient enforcement way is to file a civil litigation. Following three tips must be noted:

(1). The right holders shall distinguish whether the infringer could be applied into the safe harbor rule, for instance, whether the infringing contents were uploaded by the website user, or whether the infringer provided with search engine service.

(2).The first holder shall first maintain evidence. With regard to online infringement, the infringer could delete the infringing contents through a click of the mouse. As such, the infringing content must be notarized.

(3). The right holder will still need to calculate whether the compensation covers the cost. Under the fact that the compensation from copyright enforcement is comparatively low, a general infringement may be compensated less money that lawyer fees the right holder might pay.

 Lawyer Contacts

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

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