A Chinese photographer has become the first in the country to receive compensation for video copyright infringement.

In January 2018, a photographer surnamed Liu made a short video on a skiing trip to Chongli, Hebei Province, and posted the video on New Studios Media Group, a community of film and TV professionals in China. Liu thereby enjoys copyright of the video in accordance with Chinese law. Later he found the video was being used by Yit.com without his authorization, for a commercial advertising Volvo cars.

Liu sued Yit.com for damages of 1 million yuan ($148,588).

Haidian District People's Court in Beijing recently issued the judgment, ascertaining that the video is the property of the author. The court supported Liu's claim for compensation, awarding him 500,000 yuan ($74,294), the maximum available through judicial justice.

Article 49 of China's Copyright Law says, "The infringer shall, when having infringed upon the copyright or the rights related to the copyright, make compensation on the basis of the obligee's actual losses; where the actual losses are difficult to be calculated, the compensation may be made on the basis of the infringer's illegal gains." In judicial practice, compensation of 500,000 yuan is regarded as the maximum for copyright protection.

On April 26, World Intellectual Property Day, the Internet copyright industry research base under the National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC) released a report on the development of China's Internet copyright. According to the report, the size of China's Internet copyright industry reached 742.3 billion yuan ($110.3 billion) in 2018, an increase of 16.6 percent year on year.

The report also found that Internet news, online games and online videos have become the three pillars of China's Internet copyright industry, accounting for 85 percent of the total value. Online videos are dominating the growth rate, largely due to the expanding membership model, reaching 96.3 billion yuan ($14.31 billion) in 2018, surging by 32 percent year on year.

In 2018, profits driven by user payments and advertising income continued to expand. Payment from users rose from 222.9 billion yuan ($33.12 billion) in 2016 to 368.6 billion yuan ($54.77 billion) in 2018, and its proportion among the total market size of Internet copyright increased from 44 percent in 2016 to nearly 50 percent in 2018, according to the report.

According to an analysis of the report, the type of content people are willing to pay for has become diversified, with audio and video products accounting for an increasingly larger proportion. In addition, as the awareness of copyright protection enhances, new profit-seeking forms such as Web articles, network broadcasting and short videos are growing rapidly.

The report summarizes significant achievements in copyright protection made in 2018. China's copyright authority investigated 544 cases of Internet copyright infringement, including 74 criminal cases which amounted to 150 million yuan ($22.29 million) worth of property.

The judicial system has also been improving. Beijing Higher People's Court issued a guideline on the handling of copyright infringement cases and Internet courts were established in Beijing and Guangzhou.

Various participants have also been encouraged to protect copyright by the use of new technologies, said the report. Related industrial associations issued self-regulating guidelines and management rules. Blockchain and other new technologies have also been used to enhance copyright protection.

The report states that despite significant progress in protecting Internet copyright, China still faces some challenges. For instance, the current legal system is not suitable for modern requirements. As infringement and piracy diversify, it makes it more difficult to protect copyright. The appetite for quantity over quality also means that keeping up with the gargantuan amount of material is a difficult task.

Photo infringement also soared in 2018, with plagiarism and illegal reproduction of articles by WeChat official accounts also prominent. Infringements involving online games accounted for the biggest proportion of criminal cases.

The report suggests the government is accelerating the process in a number of ways. These include revising the Copyright Law, improving the copyright institutional system, encouraging innovation and original work and enhancing the transparency of copyright transaction platforms.

On April 11, Visual China Group, a stock media provider, became embroiled in a copyright scandal for falsely claiming the ownership of the first image of a black hole. The photo was actually a collective work of a team of 200 scientists from various countries.

Later, the NCAC announced picture copyright protection will be included in the upcoming nationwide campaign called Sword Net 2019, launched jointly with the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Public Security. The campaign, mainly focusing on paraphrasing plagiarism and illegal activities by image agencies, will run from the end of April to the end of October this year.

The authorities will intensify copyright protection in new media, crack down on the infringement of news and punish plagiarism and illegal reproduction of media reports. Film copyright will be strictly protected in cinemas, with all facets of illegal sharing being severely cracked down upon.

Oversight of software and hardware copyright will be strengthened and unauthorized spreading of works created by other people via smart devices will also be punished, as will those spreading copyrighted images without prior consent.

This is an edited excerpt based on speeches delivered at the 2019 National Conference on Copyright Protection and Development in Digital Environment

Copyedited by Craig Crowther

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