The popular China copyright monitoring website 101

This Chinese Kat is always delighted to receive (increasingly frequent) requests from foreign friends asking details of specific IP developments in China. A few days ago a friend located in the Middle East asked me how the new Chinese copyright monitoring website is going. Finally, the homework has been done and here comes some information. 

Background 

On 19 April last, the Copyright Society of China (CSC) held a press conference in Beijing, debuting its official online Copyright Monitoring Centre (“the Centre”): www.12426.cn. The CSC, directly under the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the PRC (SAPPRFT), is the most representative and officially supported social organization in the Chinese copyright field. It was created in the same year as the Copyright Law of the PRC, and has been playing essential roles in promoting the development of copyright ever since.

The Centre was founded in August 2016 in response to the Outline of the National IP Strategy and a series of IP-incentive policies issued by the Central Committee of the Communist of China and the State Council. It was designed to provide technical supports to governments to carry out network copyright supervision in accordance with the law, and provide services for members and the public to safeguard their copyrights. Ultimately, it aims to ensure the healthy and orderly development of copyright industries.

During the press conference Mr Yan Xiaohong, the director of the CSC, noted that “during the past decade, the IP environment in China has changed significantly. The number of people who are willing to pay for copyright has been remarkably increased. Yet problems still exist, both from the institutional and technical perspectives. Today, with the support from the National Copyright Administration of the PRC, the Centre goes live, and will play a crucial role in safeguarding China’s copyright regulations, particularly in cyberspace.”

Highlights 

1. One-stop service

The copyright owner can initiate the one-stop copyright safeguard process which includes all the available services that the Centre provides. 

2. Customized service

Or, the copyright owner can choose parts from the “one-stop package” to meet their own needs. 

3. Massive informative, comprehensive, accurate and real-time

Cooperating with the technical supporter Firstbrave Information Technologies, and thanks to the technologies of content-searching, big data analyses, artificial intelligence and cloud computing, the Centre can carry out the 24/7 and real-time monitoring of over 12,000 platforms (including PCs, mobile phone apps, smart TVs and live streaming platforms). Then, the accurate report of infringements can be produced by the professional team based on the feature-matching technique.

4. Data visualization

The Centre provides multiple ways to display the monitoring results. The analytical reports can be viewed and downloaded easily. 

Emerge as the times require

In China, the awareness of “pay for copyright” has been rising. Yet, also due to the enormous population, the problem of piracy still causes huge loss of copyright owners. Taking internet-literature as an example, according to the 2016 white paper of internet literature copyright protection, the amount of loss caused by piracy is Chinese Yuan 79.8 billion. Copyright protection has been beset with difficulties in, well, every aspect: the legislative progress lags the speed of industrial development, ISPs abuse the “safe harbor” rule flying the flag of “technical neutrality”, the litigation cycle takes quite long time, and people's awareness of copyright still needs improvement: these all have been frustrating the copyright holders by increasing the cost and pressure of copyright safeguarding. 

The Centre, as a government-sponsored platform, pivots all the parties concerned in a forceful and dynamic manner. It reduces the cost while enhancing the efficiency of copyright safeguarding. It therefore received active cooperations from some heavyweight enterprises (e.g. Alibaba, youku, sohu, Tencent) in China. 

Mr. Wu Guanyong, the vice director and the CEO of the Firstbrave Information Technologies, mentioned in the 4th China New copyright issues seminar (2016) that, “in China, the main path of safeguarding copyright is through the administrative enforcement network, which includes the CSC, the local Copyright Offices, local cultural law enforcement team (for a general idea of what it is, see here the one in Beijing), and law firms; only around 5% copyright safeguarding have been handled through civil litigation, yet the huge backlog remains a big problem.”

Although the centre has operated for less than a month, it has been tackling piracy in a very effective way: more than 95% detected infringements (initiated by the copyright holders of course) have been remedied. Currently, more and more popular works (for instance, the hit TV show “In the Name of People”) are being monitored by the Centre. 

This Kat believes that the Centre will not only serve the needs of copyright owners, the concerned enterprises, and Chinese authorities alike, but also benefit the whole public ultimately. The Centre, as a transparent window into Chinese copyright protection, is indeed a delight to see.