Photo speaks of IPR protection loopholes

Visual China Group is in trouble. At a time when the country has pledged to strengthen its protection of intellectual property rights, the country's largest stock images provider has been accused of abusing them - and even resorting to blackmail - to make a profit.

VCG sparked an outcry nationwide last week after it claimed to own the copyright to the first-ever image of a black hole, the work of a team of 200 international scientists in the Event Horizon Telescope project. Now the Shenzhen-listed company has been forced to shut down its website to "rectify" its problems.

Over the past 10 years, the company, flaunting the banner of IPR protection, has filed tens of thousands of lawsuits against what it claimed are copyright violators. In 2018 alone, nearly 3,000 such lawsuits were lodged.