The newly amended Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China shall come into force on June 1, 2021 (November 2020)
On November 11, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress reached the decision to amend the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China. The newly amended Copyright Law includes 6 chapters with 67 articles and shall come into force from June 1, 2021.
The main highlights of this revision are as follows.
1. The punishment for copyright infringement has been increased. For intentional infringement with serious circumstances, punitive damages of more than double or less than five times the amount of compensation can be applied. If it is difficult to calculate the actual loss of the right holder, the illegal income of the infringer, or the royalty of the right, the people's court shall, according to the circumstances of the infringement, award compensation of not less than five hundred yuan but not more than five million yuan. The revision clarifies the lower limit of statutory compensation at 500 yuan, and raise the statutory cap to 5 million yuan.
This provision is in line with the punitive damages for intellectual property rights under Article 1184 of the Civil Code, and is basically consistent with Article 63 of the Trademark Law, Article 71 of the Patent Law, and Article 17 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.
2. The definition of "work" is adjusted, and the expression "cinematographic works and works created by methods similar to the filming of films" is amended to "audiovisual works”. This means that the scope of copyright protection has been expanded, and new types of works such as short online videos will receive strong legal protection.
3. New law enforcement departments for the investigation and punishment of infringement measures and means. When investigating and dealing with suspected infringement of copyright and copyright-related rights, the department in charge of copyright may question the parties concerned and investigate the circumstances related to the suspected illegal acts. They may also carry out on-site inspection of the premises and articles of the parties' suspected illegal acts; inspect and copy contracts, invoices, account books and other relevant information related to the suspected illegal acts. The premises and articles of the suspected illegal acts can be seized or impounded.
4. It is clarified that in order to protect copyright and rights related to copyright, the right holder can take technical measures. Technical measures refer to effective technologies, devices or components used to prevent or restrict the viewing or enjoyment of works, performances, audio and video recordings or to make works, performances, audio and video recordings available to the public through information networks without the permission of the right holder." That is, in order to protect their rights in the work, they can adopt certain restrictive technical measures on the work.
This amendment is another major amendment to the major intellectual property law following the amendment to the Patent Law. The amended Copyright Law provides legal protection for creators to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests by improving copyright protection in cyberspace, especially by significantly increasing the statutory cap on infringement compensation, clarifying the principle of punitive damages and other relevant provisions, and improving judicial remedies to effectively deter infringement.
Adapted from Xinhua News Agency website