The State Council of China will issue a new regulation on the copyright of internet publications to control online publishing in China. The statement was issued by Yan Xiaohong, Deputy Director of China's National Copyright Administration (NCAC), during a regular NCAC press conference Wednesday in Beijing.

The new rule, which will most likely be issued before June 2006, will define and deal with copyright problems from online publishing, and curb the copyright infringement cases in China. Meanwhile it will stipulate a mechanism for republishing online publications. At present, most online publications cannot be republished without prior consent from their authors'.

According to Yan, this regulation is in preparation for China's intention to join two World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) internet copyright treaties. These are the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty and the World Intellectual Copyright Organization Performance and Phonogram Treaty.

Besides the new regulation, NCAC will strive especially to crack down on the publishing of pirated movies and music on the internet, as most of the online publications without copyright currently were found be such. The government will launch a search engine platform, which can search online publishing of music and movies without copyright, and technically find the location of the web servers holding these publications.

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