Tag Archives: copyright infringement

China’s Courts Found Non-Infringement for Unauthorized Remake of Song

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(By Luo Yanjie) Abstract: The scope of the statutory license includes the manufacturing of the audio recording, and also includes the distribution of the work afterwards. Judging from the latest case, the written statement of the right holder must explicitly exclude the application of statutory license, and cannot simply exclude it by claiming “chasing any infringement.”

The statutory license provided in the Copyright Law is to prevent a monopoly in the music market, but the law also regulates that the right holder has the right to exclude that license. ” However as to what kind statement shall be made within such exclusion statement, we have found no such regulation in law. According to the case described in this essay, the recording industry tends to use the term “copyright reserved, and infringement chased”, which in fact is not within the scope of the license due to the followings:

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How to Divide the Burden of Proof in Software Infringement Cases in China?

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(By Luo Yanjie) Abstract: In software infringement lawsuits, the plaintiff shall demonstrate itself as the rights holder of the software involved and the “substantial similarity” of the defendant’s software with its own. On the opposite side of the coin, once a defendant counters by claiming that no infringements have been made, it shall present relevant evidence; otherwise, it shall bear any disadvantages resulting from the failure to present proof of a lack of infringement. As for the case described in this essay, although it involves open source software, no definitive solution has yet been made to solve this particular legal program, to our disappointment.

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Could Yang Jiang Prevents the Auction Off of Qian Zhongshu’s Letters with Friends?

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(By You Yunting)At first, the author would like to make a digression statement: in the article “Would Tencent Take the Copyright of Contents Published by Users on WeChat?”, the author analyzed the misunderstanding arisen by the Tencent User Agreement, and after its publication, Tencent modified its agreement, by which the original article has been amended into “For the contents created by the user when using the service herein provided, its IPR shall be the property of the user or the related right holder.” The author deeply appreciates their quick acceptation of the advice.

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Why Ultraman Movie‘s Copyright Holder Confronts Obstacle in Claiming His Right over Ultraman Doll?

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Abstract

(By Albert Chen) When the character in a film or television work satisfies the originality element, it could constitute as an independent work under the Copyright Law. But in that situation, the right holder of the film and television work could not necessarily claim the copyright over the character in it, and any infringement against the character shall be fought back by its designer or the licensee of the designer.

Case Summary

In 2009, China Shanghai Character License Administrative Corporation (“SCLA” hereinafter) gained the exclusive license from Tsuburaya Company for Ultraman Diga’s reproduction rights, distribution rights, rental and merchandising rights, and as well as the right to relicense the above rights within the territory of mainland China. After that, SCLA found that Hubei Xinyijia Supermarket Co., Ltd. ( “Xinyijia” hereinafter) has been selling out the Ultraman Diga toys, and thereafter SCLA filed their lawsuit in the court.

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Is It Illegal to Auction off Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang’s Letter Manuscripts?

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(By You Yunting) Recently, we noticed that a Beijing-based auction company was interested in selling letters and manuscripts, including those from the couple Mr. Qian Zhongshu and Ms. Yang Jiang (it should be noted both Mr. Qian and Ms. Yang are noted scholars in China). In addition, we have also seen letters from their daughter Ms. Qianyuan to Li Guoqiang, the chief editor of Hong Kong based magazine Guang Jiao Jing, and a manuscript of Mr. Qian’s work. In the meantime, some of the letters’ content has been disclosed to the media; in fact, following these disclosures there was apparent dissatisfaction from Mr. Qian’s widow, Yang Jiang, alleging that these public disclosures were in fact a violation of one’s private communication, and any public disclosure, by the media or otherwise, would be considered improper.

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Whether using the Name of Another’s Work Constitutes Copyright Infringement or Unfair Competition

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Abstract: The Copyright Law and the Anti Unfair Competition Law supplement each other, but they also compete with each other. In the case introduced in this article, the first instance court denied the copyright infringement claim, but confirmed liability under the principles of unfair competition. This seems to be logically contradictory, and the court in the second instance corrected this glaring mistake.

(By Luo Yanjie Unfair competition refers to an operator’s misconduct that violates principles of fairness, justice, and good faith; it is also considered any behavior that violates widely adopted commercial ethics. As for copyright, as a kind of exclusive right, it mainly focuses on granting the right holder a monopolistic right in conformance with the law, and thereby grants the right holder monopoly rights as well as a competitive advantage through the exploitation of his/her own intellectual works. In this particular aspect, it shares a similar purpose with the Anti Unfair Competition Law. For this reason, the Copyright Law and the Anti Unfair Competition Law supplement each other, yet on the other hand they also compete with each other.

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China’s Latest Laws and Regulations in April 2013

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I. The Supreme People’s Court and Local People’s Courts Successively Released White Books on Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property in 2012 and Model Cases.

On April 22, before World Intellectual Property Day, the Supreme People’s Court released the White Book on Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property By Chinese Courts in 2012 (the ”White Book”) and Model Cases embodying new Issues related to intellectual property protection.

Afterwards, the local people’s courts successively released local white books on local intellectual property protection and local model cases. On April 25, the Shanghai High People’s Court held a press conference and released the White Book of the Shanghai People’s Court on Intellectual Property Adjudication in 2012 and Ten Key Cases.

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Is a Copyright’s Creation Time Important for Deciding Copyright Infringement?

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(By Albert Chen) In 2010, Getty Images China (“Getty China”) filed a copyright infringement suit against Sinotrans Chongqing Co. (“Sinotrans Chongqing”). After the first instance, second instance, and review, the Supreme Court confirmed the copyright held by Getty China over the pictures involved in the case. The point that deserves the most attention in the case is the different understandings on whether the creation date of the copyright is an essential requirement for showing infringement.

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Will Magic be Protected as A Work under China’s Copyright Law?

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(By Luo Yanjie) Magic has long been a popular medium with which to entertain an audience, and how one should legally protect magic has long been a problem in the law. This problem has become especially obvious now that we have seen arguments regarding magic and the requirement that an expression be “original” as stipulated in the Copyright Law. Today, we would like to introduce to our readers how China protects magic works based on a case heard by the Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court, which can be considered the first established case concerning the magic work.

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Is a Notarization Made under False Pretenses for the Purpose of Evidence Collecting Valid in China?

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(By  Luo Yanjie) In a civil lawsuit, the collecting of evidence for the purpose of notarization is quite common. However, during the process of collecting evidence that concerns the selling of infringing goods, the rights holders or their attorneys typically utilize a system of collection in which they set up a “customer” to purchase the infringing product as evidence of infringement. So the question is, should evidence collected in this manner be considered legally effective for the purposes of a lawsuit for infringement or unfair trade practice? For our understanding on the issue, and our experience in this decidedly complicated process, we would like to share with our readers today’s post concerning our opinions on the issue:

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Analysis of the Assumption of Liability for E-Merchants in IPR Disputes in China, II

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—Interpretations on Solutions to Several Issues in Hearing E-Commerce IPR Infringement Cases

In today’s post we will continue to discuss the standards to be considered in determining the liability of e-merchant platforms.

III. Standards in Determining the Indirect Infringement Liability of E-Merchant Platforms

As discussed above, an e-merchant platform may only assume indirect infringement liability under the law, and therefore it would not be necessarily always be liable for infringement occurring on its platform. The pressing question then, is what standards shall be utilized when determining their liability? In response to this question, we would like to share our analysis based on a comparison of similar statutes:

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Analysis of the Assumption of Liability for E-Merchants in IPR Disputes in China, I

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—Interpretations on Solutions to Several Issues in Hearing E-Commerce IP Infringement Cases

(By Luo Yanjie) In recent years, E-Commerce in China has thrived along with the development of online shopping. According to some news reports, the volume of the transactions from 360buy.com totaled more than RMB sixty billion Yuan, and Suning’s online sales achieved a comparatively paltry RMB 18.336 billion Yuan. With respect to Taobao.com and its affiliated websites, their business gains have vastly superseded all other rivals. By November 2012, Taobao.com and Tmall had sales of over RMB 1000 billion Yuan, which is almost three times that of Bailian Group, Suning and Gome’ s annual income in 2011 combined. The aforesaid three companies are currently the top three retail chains in China.

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Does Wind’s Sale of Tonghuashun’s Stock Constitute Insider Trading?

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Previously, we posted “Tonghuashun VS. Wind and the Judgment Standards for Software Copyright Infringement in China” to introduce the copyright dispute between Wind and Tonghuashun. According to a recent report, two lawyers based in Beijing filed a complaint to the China Security Regulatory Commission (“CSRC”) accusing Wind and its affiliated company of insider trading, which has made the dispute more complicated.

As shown by the currently available information, from the second quarter of 2011 to the third quarter of 2012, Wind’s affiliated company was a shareholder of Tonghuashun. When the rumor emerged that Wind would sue Tonghuashun, Tonghuashun’s shares experienced several major trades. As indicated in the report issued in the third quarter of 2012, Wind sold all the Tonghuashun shares it had held. Wind explained this situation by stating that its investment in Tonghuanshun was to use its rights as a shareholder to persuade Tonghuashun to cease infringement. Today’s post will provide analysis on this issue.

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Why a Chinese Court Judged Apple Inc. to Be the Actual Operator of the AppStore Rather than iTunes S.A.R.L?

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(By Albert Chen) Recently, in the right to network dissemination of information dispute between Li Chengpeng, a well-known Chinese writer, and Apple, a Beijing judge held Apple as the actual operator of the App Store, even though the company had maintained that iTunes S.A.R.L (“iTunes”) is the actual operator, a fact afterwards admitted by iTunes. So, today’s post will introduce the reasoning used by the first instance court in its decision.

Li filed the lawsuit with the Beijing No.2 Intermediate People’s Court (“Intermediate Court”) on January 16, 2012, claiming that his latest work “李可乐抗拆记” was made into an app downloadable in App Store for free reading, which infringed his right to network dissemination of information. Additionally, as the operator, manager, and owner of the App Store, Apple should assume liability. Based on these points, Li demanded compensation for economic damages in the amount of 305,000 yuan and reasonable expenses in the amount of 5,425 yuan.

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How to Determine Infringement Conducts in Copyright Disputes in China Courts?

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(By Luo Yanjie) The Getty Images (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Getty”) provided the court with a product brochure naming defendants Shanghai Shuote Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Shuote”) and Shanghai Yikang Co., Ltd. (the “Yikang”). Getty claimed that the brochure was procured from the 6th International Tire Exhibition in Shanghai during 19th to 20th of May 2009. The defendant argued that they had neither printed nor used the brochure. However, the plaintiff provided substantial evidence to prove that the brochure could only have been printed by the defendant; regardless, the defendants failed to provide any explanation proving otherwise. On the other hand, the court had solid reasons to presume both defendants had engaged in the printing and using of the brochure.

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