Tag Archives: general administration of press and publication

Why No Solution to “Box Office Stealing” under the Current Laws in China?

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(By You Yunting) Abstract: the author was interviewed: is “box office stealing” mainly a result of a defect in GAPP’s legislature (the General Administration of Press and Publication) and SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film and Television)? For this issue, the author’s opinion is that the administration and governance over the film industry is the real reason this problem arises, because there is really no way this would happen otherwise, and its unlikely those right holders would try to protect their rights, making the aggressive parties even more aggressive. Thus we would only see the bad drives out the good.

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

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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.”

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

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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.

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

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(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.

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Are New Rules on Internet Publication from GAPP against State Council’s Regulations?

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(By You Yunting) Abstract: By the “Management Measures of Internet Information Services” (the “Measures”) issued by the State Council, China will carry out a new system of filing and recording to those non-operating Internet information services, namely those services involving the open sharing of information. These websites falling within the measures shall undertake the recording and filing procedures laid out before publishing any and all information. Yet, the situation seems to have undergone some changes with the promulgation of the working draft of the “Management Regulations of Network Publishing Services” (the “Regulations”), wherein most information released onto the network would be deemed so-called “network publishing.” As provided in the Regulations, no matter whether the service is operating or non-operating, the requirements for a Network Publishing Service License (the “License”) shall apply. It can be easily seen that such regulations are being made that are essentially beyond any lawful authorization, and are in fact contrary to rules previously issued by the State Council.

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Is It Illegal for Amazon.cn Running Kindle Store with A License Borrowed from Business Cooperation?

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(By You Yunting) On the morning of 13th December, to most one’s inexpectation, Amazon.cn launched itsChinese Kindle Store. As indicated in the web page, it is run by Chineseall.com, a licensed online publisher. That hints Kindle reader would come to China soon. And on the eager of Chinese users,a media report on 14th December (Note: the link is in Chinese) claimed Kindle Store has been halted by the General Administration of Press and Publication (the “GAPP”) for its violation against the law.
“Mr. Wang Qiang, the chief of digital publication section of the Science & Digital Publication Department of GAPP said in his interview that Amazon’s Kindle Store is violating the law for its license borrowed from business cooperation”. Also, it is mentioned in the report that GAPP has inquired and investigated Amazon.cn and Chineseall.com, but yet no result is available now. It is obvious that to Amazon’s plan, it would like to settle the license obstacle by using others’ license. In today’s post, we would like to discuss legal issues concerning licenses on electronic book business.
I. What license is necessary for e-book business?
The qualification of e-book business is mainly regulated in department rules of GAPP. Possibly due to a faster development in science and outdated regulations, the rules are actually could not been seen as an official legislature. It is called Opinions on Developing E-book Industry by GAPP. (Note: the link is in Chinese) By its Article 14, the e-book business of Amazon involves the edition, publish and sales of the e-publication, and thereby shall correspondently apply for three licenses.
Before the e-book, the online game industry is also facing the license problem to publishing the user terminal. At then, two ways are mainly adopted by game companies for the acquisition of business license: 1) the game companies with online publish license could directly submit the game to the GAPP for approval in his own name; 2) those companies with no such qualification, they would present the games to the electronic audio and video publishing house and afterwards to gain the e-publication license. But unlike the publish of online game, for which hundreds of games could be run by a single company and they are possible to gain the license through the publishing house, the release of the e-book may involves millions of works, once they are published through publishing house, all their gains may be inadequate for the payment to the publishing house.
II. Why Amazon did not apply for the license directly?
Could Amazon directly apply for the license for online publication? The answer is no. The shareholder of Amazon.cn is Amazon USA, which makes it a foreign invested company. And by the Guideline of Foreign Invested Industry issued by the Ministry of Commerce, the field of video & audio production as well as the electronic publication and making is prohibited for foreign investment. For this reason, Amazon.cn could no apply for the license solely by itself or in its name.
III. What problems for the cooperation between Amazon and Chineseall.com?
According to the page of Amazon’s e-book:
“The e-book store of Kindle is supported by Chineseall.com, Xinchuwangzheng (jing) No.045”. The Chineseall.com is a licensed corporate, and obviously by Amazon’s plan,it would like to settle the problem of license through the cooperation with a licensed company. But to my personal opinion, the current operation model is defected. To my experience, the domain name, server room, software for reading and payment for book purchase of Kindle e-book store are all supported by Amazon.cn, and it has no connection with Chineseall.com, so where could see the support from Chineseall.com? Therefore, it is not groundless in law that the official from the GAPP said Amazon’s operation under others’ license is violating the law.
Before closing, just half month ago, Xiaomi Inc., a private high tech company, released its set top box–Xiaomi Box, which was also halted by the administration. For that, the author has also written two articles to criticize the authority. For this time, the international giant Amazon couters with the same problem in the publish field. However, either Xiaomi or Kindle Store leads the development direction of science and advanced culture. Their experience in the government’s administration could also explain their “advance”, and the outdate of Chinese authority. And by te existing system in China, no judicial relief is available to Chinese companies when in such situation, and they could not file an administrative lawsuit. The main risk for it is the administration supervision could kill the update and upgrade of high-tech products, which would eventually make our science development legging behind the global trend.

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Music Industry’s Revision Suggestion to Drafted Copyright Law, II

The exposure draft of revised Copyright Law (the “Draft”) has gained wide attention among the public after its publication on the website of the National Copyright Association of China (NCAC). One of the reasons contributing to the heated discussion is the articles possibly damaging the interests of musicians who have expressed their strong opposition to the Draft.

In recent, the Record Committee of China Audio & Video Association (CAVA) affiliated to General Administration of Press and Publication of PRC has made their suggestions to the modification on the Draft. To the introduction on the website of CAVA, it has more than 520 member units that are engaged in audio-video production, duplication, distribution and marketing. The member units have not only the largest state record corporation, audio-video press, but also the best music-make corporation, distribution and marketing corporation and the large chain marketing corporation at home. Under CAVA there are several working committees such as distribution, record, disc, educative publishing, digital audio-video and china marketing committee. And the Record Committee making the suggestion this time is the working committee of the CAVA.

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Music Industry’s Revision Suggestion to Drafted Copyright Law, I

The exposure draft of revised Copyright Law (the “Draft”) has gained wide attention among the public after its publication on the website of the National Copyright Association of China (NCAC). One of the reasons contributing to the heated discussion is the articles possibly damaging the interests of musicians who have expressed their strong opposition to the Draft.

In recent, the Record Committee of China Audio & Video Association (CAVA) affiliated to General Administration of Press and Publication of PRC has made their suggestions to the modification on the Draft. To the introduction on the website of CAVA, it has more than 520 member units that are engaged in audio-video production, duplication, distribution and marketing. The member units have not only the largest state record corporation, audio-video press, but also the best music-make corporation, distribution and marketing corporation and the large chain marketing corporation at home. Under CAVA there are several working committees such as distribution, record, disc, educative publishing, digital audio-video and china marketing committee. And the Record Committee making the suggestion this time is the working committee of the CAVA.

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State Intellectual Property Office Actually Only Be in Charge of Patent Matters in China

The Introduction to the IPR Administrations in China

We find that it remains unclear to most foreign friends that the division among the administrations managing IPR in China. Actually, it also puzzles local people for it’s hardly to judge the specific function of the administration from its name, for example, the State Intellectual Property Office is in charge of patent management, the industry and commerce administration for trademark, and the Copy Right Office, the managing organ for copyright, is also known as the administration of press and publication. (the image above is the logo of the administrations mentioned in this post)

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