Online copyright violations have been running rampant in China in the recent years. Cui Ning finds out what measures the government is considering to battle Internet IPR piracy.

The draft of the Regulations for Protecting Copyrights on the Internet will be formulated late this year, with the goal of better protecting copyrights of online works, China Daily has learned from National Copyright Administration.

The draft will be submitted to the State Council for approval before it officially takes effect.

"To develop our information industry with independent intellectual property rights (IPR) and on the basis of meeting international standards is the general principles stipulated in the regulation," said administration official Xu Chao.

Internet-based services in the world are divided into two categories: ICP (Internet content provider) and ISP (Internet service provider).

The regulation will provide relevant articles on how to protect copyrights on Internet works and how to deal with violations, within the scope of the two categories, said Xu.

China revised its Copyright Law in 2001 and the issue of copyrights for Internet-related material is only briefly mentioned in the revision. It stated that violators should be responsible for the copying of online arts and literature works. The revised law also specifies in what situations violators should be held to civil or criminal liability.

In 2003, the Supreme People's Court implemented a judicial interpretation for trying cases on computer-based copyright disputes.

Late last year, China issued a new judicial interpretation to facilitate the government's efforts in fighting IPR crimes.

Relying on the revised Copyright Law and judicial interpretations alone is not enough for administrative supervision on Internet copyright protection. It is necessary to work out an independent regulation to help slash rampant online copyright violations in the country, said Xu.

To further improve copyrights protection, Xu said China is ready to join two conventions of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) -- the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performance and Phonograms Treaty.

Voices from judges and experts

Courts across the country are receiving an increasing number of cases related to disputes over the Internet-based copyrights, as computerized networks have deeply influenced various aspects of people's lives, according to Jiang Zhipei, chief-judge of the Intellectual Property Rights Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court.

Wang Liren, a senior judge with the Intermediate People's Court in Yichang of Central China's Hubei Province, suggested that a national online centre for protecting Internet-based copyrights and handling appeals be set up, so as to supplement the traditional way of handling lawsuits.

The centre can be authorized with the rights of supervision and enforcement. For those websites, which wink at copyright violators plagiarizing articles of others on websites, the online centre can fine them or require them to close down. If cases are serious, the centre can ask violators to make apologies on their websites and tell all websites to ban the violators from publishing articles during a certain time period.

Wang said the centre can build a database that reveals the blacklist of copyright violators.

He said Internet-based copyright violations are very serious in China.

Wang himself is a victim of copyright infringement. In recent years, Wang found that his articles, especially his research on stealing crimes, have been frequently copied by others.

"Copyright violators sometimes copy paragraphs by paragraphs, or sort out main subjects, without giving original sources," said Wang. "Sometimes they even copy a whole article and only change a new headline."

Last November 15, Wang found that his article about convictions and measurements of penalties on stealing crimes, was published, under the name of Huang Wei, on a website operated by the Supreme People's Procuratorate. Wang sent an email to the website, asking the duplicated article be deleted and also asking for the address or work unit of Huang Wei. But the website has neither deleted the faked article nor given Huang's address.

"Currently, any legal way of protecting the Internet-based works is limited, costly and complicated procedurally. I had to give up as I had no time to persist with the case," Wang sighed.

Copyright owners cannot control the Internet-based media. When finding their articles are plagiarized, most copyright owners usually demand deletion of their works and ask for apologies. They seldom ask for compensation and seldom resort to court with complicated procedures for a simple deletion of an article. If their demand fails,concerned copyright violation can exist for a very long period, said Wang.

Zheng Chengsi, a senior researcher with the Intellectual Property Rights Centre of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said copyright violations through the Internet have gone beyond copying written articles to computer software, music, film and television works.

"If these violations are not curbed in a timely way, our efforts in the past few years to fight against piracy in the market will be in vain," Zheng said. "If we let plagiarism on websites just run its course, domestic software, audio and video industries will be badly influenced."

Zheng said most websites operate by abiding by the Copyright Law. They ask for permission from thousands of copyright owners before publishing relevant works.