Since drafting its first domestic copyright law, it has taken China only a little over a decade to join the major international copyright conventions. This path is remarkably short for adopting copyright conventions--it took nearly a century to develop them in Western countries.

The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, widely known as the Berne Convention, is one of the earliest international conventions regarding copyright and was first adopted in Berne, Switzerland in 1886. The convention was developed through the efforts of French writer Victor Hugo under the auspices of his Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale. Under the Berne Convention, copyrights for creative works do not have to be asserted or declared, as they are automatically in force at creation. In countries adhering to the Berne Convention, an author need not "register" or "apply for" a copyright on his or her works--they are automatically applied as soon as the writer puts pen to paper, or in this day and age, finger to key.

The other principal international convention protecting copyright is the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC), adopted at Geneva in 1952. The UCC was developed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as an alternative to the Berne Convention because some states disagreed with certain aspects of the Berne Convention, especially the United States. After the Second World War, the United States began to gain supremacy in the development of science, cultural and artistic products, subjecting the country to the practical need for international copyright protection.

But the United States then refused to join the European-dominated Berne Convention since it intended to expand its international influence on copyright protection under a new system, according to Li Shunde, a copyright law expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He believed that the drafting of UCC had born strong influence from the United States.

It took China 40 years and much effort to join both the principal international treaties on copyright protection. In April 1979, the Central Government put forward the proposal to draft a copyright law. In the following 10 years, there were many debates during the drafting process. The most controversial issue was on imported works. When the draft was hammered out to solicit suggestions from government departments in 1987, several departments voiced their concern that the import of foreign technology books and magazines would be affected if China joined international conventions according to the draft version of the law. Therefore, they suggested China should delay the drafting of the copyright law and accession to international conventions. The message was contradictory to the spirit of an earlier seminar in 1985 where participants reached consensus that China should join international copyright conventions in order to benefit from expanding cultural exchanges and the import of cultural and technological information.

In December 1988, the State Council hosted a seminar on the feasibility of drafting a copyright law. The seminar reached the consensus that China's copyright law should come out as soon as possible, thus ending a variety of discussions and debates on whether China needed a copyright law or not.

However, lawmakers faced the thorny issue of combining principles of international copyright conventions with China's situation. Since then, China has consulted the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) many times regarding legislation issues.

From that point on, China's stance on enacting a copyright law and joining international copyright conventions has been unwavering. In September 1990, the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China was passed. Article Two of the law stipulates, "Works of foreigners first published in the territory of the People's Republic of China shall enjoy copyright in accordance with this Law. Any work of a foreigner published outside the territory of the People's Republic of China which is eligible to enjoy copyright under an agreement concluded between the country to which the foreigner belongs and China, or under an international treaty to which both countries are party, shall be protected in accordance with this Law." This conforms to the international norms and demonstrates China's attitude toward normalizing international copyright cooperation.

In June 1991, right before the implementation of the Copyright Law, Chinese Government officials emphasized that China would definitely join international copyright conventions, but that it needed a period to prepare and adjust itself.

In September 1991, China sent delegations to Geneva and Paris, which respectively discussed China's accession to both the Berne Convention and the UCC with the WIPO and UNESCO. Both international entities reckoned that China could join international copyright conventions on basis of its own copyright law and allowed for more flexibility for China during the transitional period.

As the biggest copyright holder of China's imported works, the United States became the first country to raise the issue of copyright protection to China. The lengthy negotiations between the two countries, which started February 1991, reached consensus at its eighth round with the signing of a memorandum on the protection of intellectual property rights. This cleared another major hurdle to China's accession to the two main international copyright conventions.

In July 1992, the Standing Committee of National People's Congress, China's top legislative body, adopted the proposal that China should apply to join the Berne Convention and the UCC. The applications were formally handed over in July 1992. In the same month, the WIPO announced that China had become a formal member of the Berne Convention, taking effect on October 15, 1992. UNESCO headquarters issued a statement on October 9, 1992, announcing that the UCC would go into effect in China on October 30, 1992.

China's Copyright Law and international copyright conventions are consistent in principles and major clauses. However, China's State Council promulgated Provisions on the Implementation of International Copyright Treaties in September 1992, which explained how to deal with issues of inconsistency between China's Copyright Law and the international copyright conventions, so as to ensure the authority and implementation of international copyright conventions.

As a developing country, China's copyright protection system is in its infant stage. China promulgated its Copyright Law in September 1990, which went into effect in June 1991. When China started drafting its copyright law, over 100 countries had already drafted a similar law. Yet it was only one year and four months between the implementation of China's Copyright Law and the implementation of an international copyright convention. What took some countries dozens of years took China less than two decades.

In order to more effectively fulfill international copyright conventions, China also joined the Geneva Phonogram Convention in April 1993. When China joined the WTO in November 2001, it promised to implement the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights administered by the WTO and to amend its laws on intellectual property accordingly. This is yet another example that China is approaching the international standard in copyright protection.

China's Major Laws and Regulations on Copyright Protection Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China (went into effect on June 1, 1991 and was amended in 2001) Provisions on the Implementation of the International Copyright Treaties (became effective on September 30,1992) Regulations on Computer Software Protection (went into effect on January 1, 2002) Regulation on the Implementation of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China (went into effect on September 15, 2002) Regulation on the Collective Administration of Copyright (became effective on March 1, 2005) Regulation on the Protection of the Right to Network Dissemination of Information (became effective on July 1, 2006) Major International Treaties on Intellectual Property Rights China Has Joined Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works Universal Copyright Convention Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property Patent Cooperation Treaty Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure Locarno Agreement on Establishing an International Classification for Industrial Design Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants Geneva Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms Strasbourg Agreement Concerning the International Patent Classification