Has Apple Protected Its APP through the BSA?

The Second Record of the Day Four of the US Visit

(By You Yunting) In late March, the author had the opportunity to make a journey to the United States at the invitation of the U.S. government in order to better understand how the U.S. IPR system operates. On the morning of the fourth day of the journey, the writer visited the Business Software Association (BSA), which originally was not on the list of places to visit; it was later added on the recommendation of the writer. Despite this, the BSA received us with a chief inspection officer. The following is a record of our discussion carried out on that day. The topic of this post only concerns part of the discussion, and the reader may skip to the last part of this article if it interests you.

READ MORE

Does Running Game Cheating Programs Violate the Criminal Law in the United States?

—Day four of the visit to the United States

(By You Yunting) Beginning at the end of this March, on the invitation of the US government, the writer visited America with other Chinese legal experts with the goal of understanding its IPR system. On the fourth day, the writer visited the US Justice Department’s Bureau of Computer Crimes and IPR, the Department of Homeland Security’s IPR Coordination Center, and the American Chamber of Commerce. The following is the brief record of the writer’s experiences that day:

READ MORE

The Development of China Court’s Judgment over Criminal Offence of Online Game Cheating Programs, III

Today, our website will introduce the most recent crime adopted by courts in some regions of China to combat online game cheating programs: the crime of damaging computer information systems.

III. The crime of damaging computer information systems

Although there problems with all of the crimes previously discussed for combating cheating programs, with the strengthening of legislation, the online game industry finally found a suitable crime in 2011. According to Article 286 of the Criminal Law:

“Those who violate the law by deleting, modifying, adding, or interfering with the function of computer information systems so that information systems are unable to run normally, which leads to severe consequences, may be sentenced to imprisonment of no more than five years of detention; when the consequences are especially severe, the violator may be sentenced to imprisonment of more than five years. Those who violate the law by deleting, modifying, or adding data or applicable procedures to the storage, processing, or transmission programs in computer information systems, which leads to severe consequences, may be punished as per the preceding paragraph.”

READ MORE

The Development of China Court’s Judgment over Criminal Offence of Online Game Cheating Programs, II

Today, we will introduce the second crime adopted in China to combat cheating programs in online games: criminal copyright infringement.

II. The state of criminal copyright infringement

After years of combating cheating programs using the crime of illegal operation, the judicial organs in some regions tried to use criminal copyright infringement from Article 217 of the Criminal Law to combat cheating programs. The subjective aspect of criminal copyright infringement requires the unlicensed copying and distribution of the copyrighted work of another for profit.

READ MORE

The Development of China Court’s Judgment over Criminal Offence of Online Game Cheating Programs, I

(By You Yunting) Since Shanda imported the massively popular online game, MIR, from South Korea in 2001, the online game industry has gradually become one of the most profitable businesses in China, and has made a fortune for tycoons such as Chen Tianqiao and Ding Lei. On the other hand, all kinds of illicit activities have arisen with the development of the online game business, among which cheating programs to assist players is the most troublesome for the game companies.

According to information acquired by the writer while working in a game company, cheating programs are software that run with the game software, thus giving them their name as game cheating programs. Cheating programs have several harms. First, they incur Gresham’s Law (bad money chases out good money), which makes rules-obeying players easily defeated and thereby damages the fairness of the game. Second they put more burden on the server and force the operator to purchase more servers and the bandwidth, which undoubtedly increases costs and decreases the stability of the server. Third, they enable players to fulfill game objective more quickly, which abnormally speeds up the progress of the game and could force the game company invest more human resources into developing new game content or elements. Although it is possible that some cheating programs are used to make up for the defects in the game, most have harmed the gaming experience, added costs of the company’s development and operation, and could jeopardize stable running of the game.

READ MORE

Could Tmall Beat Back the Attack with the Aid of Police?

                   —Analysis on the Possible Legal Countermeasures against Attack on Tmall

Highlights: Tmall is facing the attack from its small merchants for the dissatisfaction on the ons side increase on the annual fee. We would like to analyze the possible legal measure Tmall may take to combat such attack.

Recently, many merchants of Tmall, a subsidiary of the biggest China e-commerce company Alibaba Group, attacked the big merchants on that platform for the upsetting on the higher annual fee with a flood of fake orders and regulatory products return leading to the cripple of the brand sites.

READ MORE

The First Criminal Case on Internet Video Copyright Infringement in China

Highlights: to introduce the first criminal case on the internet infringement, and also the analysis on the relevant laws and regulations in China. 

As one of the biggest video websites in China, the openV.com, which claims being able to provide multi-platform VOD services through mobile phone, computer and television, has been prosecuted for criminal offenses, with the website itself and six staffs are brought to the court. OpenV has been the first video website put subject to criminal liability for unauthorized film and television works on demand services. This unprecedented case shocks the industry currently with widespread infringements, and also shows the determination to combat internet infringement of China government.

READ MORE