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Updated: 2009-12-21 07:50
(China Daily)

IPR proposal reviewed

The Office of Legislative Affairs of the State Council is seeking opinions from the public on its Decision on Revising the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on the Customs Protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).

The draft regulations are proposing six important revisions to the original Regulations on the Customs Protection of Intellectual Property Rights: the alteration and cancellation of IPR records, counter-guarantees, the retrieval of protection applications made by IPR holders, the auction of infringed goods, and the legal responsibilities relating to the import and export of infringed goods.

The draft amends the 28th article in the original regulations to state: "The import and export of goods brought by individuals or mailed by express will be regarded as infringement goods if the goods exceed personal use and a reasonable quantity and infringe IP rights regulated in the second article of the draft regulations."

Website challenges

After hundreds of websites offering free movies and music downloads recently were shut down, China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) said the sites will have to solve the "copyright problem" if they want to reopen for business.

"In recent years, some websites publicly disseminated a large number of pirated films, TV dramas and other programs. Some of these programs contain lewd content. Such behaviors severely harmed young people's health and copyright owners' interests," Xinhua News Agency quoted an unidentified official with SARFT as saying.

The official said that regulating online audio and video services is a "long-term task", and as long as these websites do not solve the problem of copyright, they will not be allowed to reopen.

SARFT officials said the closed websites did not have licenses issued by the administration. Statistics show that currently more than 530 BitTorrent (BT) websites have been closed, including the major download search engine BTChina.net.

Li Yongqiang of multi-media software firm Baofeng said the government's crackdown would promote the common sense operation of Chinese websites. Li called the action a step forward in solving problems such as piracy and online pornography.

However, while many netizens expressed support for the activity, others pointed out that licensed websites should not be blamed for everything on unlicensed sites.

One netizen said licensed sites should expand their resources and offer more convenient services with high connection speeds and at reasonable prices.

BT site resumes service

A leading BitTorrent (BT) website in China offering free movie and music downloads this month resumed service one day after it went offline amid fears the authorities had closed it down in a crackdown on online piracy and pornography.

Operators put a notice on the website VeryCD that said the break in service was caused by technical failures. With 5 million downloads each year, VeryCD is the largest BT download website in China. BT is a peer-to-peer file sharing agreement.

Users welcomed the website's recovery. One netizen wrote that the one-day suspension seemed like a year.

The latest crackdown this month followed an announcement on Nov 24 by Tian Jin, deputy director of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), in which he vowed to wipe out unlicensed video websites.

Google sued

A Chinese female writer accusing Google China of copyright infringement has filed a lawsuit against the company in a Beijing court.

Mian Mian, a well-known Shanghai-based novelist, said the Haidian District People's Court is scheduled to hold a hearing on the case on Dec 29.

"Google earlier argued that they didn't violate copyright law as they only displayed a small amount of the text of my book, but I think their move has seriously hurt Chinese writers' rights," Mian Mian told China Daily.

Mian said Google scanned her entire novel, titled Acid Lover, published by the Shanghai Joint Publishing Company, without notifying her or paying her for copyright permission.

Google China deleted Mian's Acid Lover from their website on Nov 15.

But she said a Google key-word search still brings up passages of her book.

Auction canceled

An auction of Chinese paintings and sculpture has been canceled after some of the artworks were found to be fake.

Li Guohua, manager of the oil painting and sculpture department of ZD international, a Beijing-based auction company, said the auction was canceled because some of the artworks were "controversial".

The artworks were scheduled to go under the hammer in Beijing yesterday. The starting price of the work ranged from 30,000 yuan to 120,000 yuan.

"They were cancelled as they are controversial," said Li, without saying that the artwork is forged. He refused to provide further details.

Artists who have been caught up in the scandal include Zhao Ruiying, a well-known sculptor and professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Cao Chunsheng, another famous sculptor, and the late Chinese landscape oil painter Ai Zhongxin.

According to the Beijing Times, Zhao Ruiying confirmed the sculptures were fake after going to the hotel where the auction company held the auction preview.

Editor's note: The IPR Special is sponsored by the State Intellectual Property Office and published by China Business Weekly. To contact the Intellectual Property Office, the IPR Special hotlines are 8610-64995422 or 8610-64995826, and the e-mail address is ipr@chinadaily.com.cn.

(China Daily 12/21/2009 page9)

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