Draft Amendment to China's Copyright Law Gets 2nd Reading

On August 8, the Draft amendment to China's Copyright Law was submitted to the country's top legislature for a second reading. This second draft responded to a number of prominent issues, such as improving the definition of works, deleting the provisions of prohibiting the abuse of copyright rights to affect the normal dissemination of works and related regulations on legal liabilities, and adding relevant provisions to protect the copyright of audiovisual works.

The second draft further refines the definition and type of works，defining "works" as intellectual achievements that are original and can be expressed in certain forms in literature, art, science and other fields.

In terms of improving the protection of audiovisual works, the second draft categorizes the copyright ownership of audiovisual works on the basis of the first draft amendment. For example, it adds provisions on the basis of "movie works or TV drama works". If other audiovisual works "constitute cooperative works or service works, the copyright ownership shall be determined in accordance with the relevant provisions of this law; if they do not constitute cooperative works or service works, the ownership of the copyright is determined by the agreement between the producer and the author. If there is no express agreement or the agreement is not clear, the producer shall claim the ownership, but the author has the right to exhibit his name and receive remuneration. If the producer's use of the audiovisual works specified in this paragraph exceeds the scope of the contract or industry practices, the author's permission should be obtained."

In addition, in response to the problems of copyright abuse, the second draft leans on the connection with the Civil Code, Anti-monopoly Law and other laws, deleting the expression "shall not abuse the right to affect the normal dissemination of the work" in the first draft and related provisions on related legal liabilities.  At the same time, in order to better balance the protection of copyright and the public interest, the second draft moderately expands the legal scope of the fair use of relevant works without permission from or remuneration to copyright owners.

Source:China IP News