11.01.13 17:26 Age: 12 yrs
The third draft of the Copyright Law has been completed, and will be submitted to the State Council soon
January 11, 2013
The third draft of the Copyright Law has been completed, and will be submitted to the State Council soon.
This is confirmed in the report of a recent meeting of the NPC Committee for Education, Science, Culture and Hygiene, which lists revision of the Copyright Law among 11 legislative programs that are deemed to be relatively mature. The Committee therefore suggests these to be listed in the legislative plan of the NPC’s Standing Committee, to accelerate the legislative process.
The main changes are the following:
1. The right of pursuit for fine art works has been added, and the protection term for performance and photographic works has been increased;
2. Rental rights for performers as well as rights to obtain remuneration from audiovisual works have been added, as have rights for audio producers to obtain remuneration from other persons using their works for broadcast and open dissemination, and the rights of radio and television organizations have been changed from rights to prohibit to exclusive rights;
3. Administrative enforcement measures have been enhanced, it has been providers that rights holders can choose the method of damage compensation, statutory compensation levels have been raised, punitive damage provisions have been added, and the scope to infer fault of an infringer has been widened.
There are four main character of the third draft according to Wang Qiang, the head of the Legislation Department of the National Copyright Administration:
1. The structure of the draft is more justified. It logically incorporates the rights first, adds the restriction next to the provisions of rights and enclosed the implementations finally.
2. There are more rights could be well protected under the new draft.
3. Adjust the current authorization system. The Draft made efforts to improve the coherency of the Chinese copyright legal system, which consists of Copyright Law and a patchwork of Regulations for implementation or interpretation of the Copyright Law, such as “Implementing Regulations” and “Collective Management Regulations.” The Draft that integrates the contents of the existing Regulations is almost one third longer than the Copyright Law. The Draft also contains a few designs that may facilitate people’s access to knowledge, such as a quasi-compulsory licensing for “orphan works”,
4. Copyright enforcement is tremendously enhanced under the Draft while shrinking limitations and exceptions.
