Combating online literature piracy faces "three big mountains", copyright protection needs to cover the entire industry chain

Copyright protection is the foundation of the Internet ecology and the guarantee for building an innovative society. It can be said that every bit of progress has an impact on the whole body. Why did "Jianwang 2016" include online literature, cloud storage, application APP, etc. as the targets of this action? How do relevant practitioners and industry experts interpret the recently introduced new regulations? In the "Internet +" era, how should all sectors of society further promote the virtuous cycle of the online copyright ecosystem?

On July 12, 2016, the National Copyright Administration, together with the National Cyberspace Administration, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Public Security, held a press conference in Beijing to announce the official launch of the "Jianwang 2016" special action. Starting from July 2016, we will use five months to strictly investigate infringement and piracy of online literature, cloud storage, application APP, and online advertising alliances.

Copyright protection is the foundation of the Internet ecology and the guarantee for building an innovative society. It can be said that every bit of progress has an impact on the whole body. Why did "Jianwang 2016" include online literature, cloud storage, application APP, etc. as the targets of this action? How do relevant practitioners and industry experts interpret the recently introduced new regulations? In the "Internet +" era, how should all sectors of society further promote the virtuous cycle of the online copyright ecosystem?

Combating online literature piracy faces "three big mountains"

. In the past few years, post bars, forums, and video websites have more or less been involved in copyright disputes. The development of Internet technology has provided great convenience for the dissemination of online literary works. At the same time, it has also brought new challenges to copyright rights protection in the Internet field. Zhang Lingyun, founder and president of Palm Reading Technology Co., Ltd., summarized the current characteristics of online literature piracy into three points: First, it is rapid. Compared with previous piracy, the current online literature piracy is more rapid, and even "second theft" occurs. Extreme situation. The second is rampant. Piracy is no longer hidden in dark corners, but is becoming increasingly open. Even after authors take anti-piracy measures, there are cases where pirates openly threaten authors. The third is facilitation. On the one hand, aggregation makes it more convenient for users to read pirated novels; on the other hand, the convenience of mobile phones and the increasing share of mobile reading piracy also provide convenience for users.

Compared with the convenience of piracy, online literature is very difficult to deal with piracy. Hu Huijuan, the president's office manager of Jinjiang Literature City of Beijing Jinjiang Original Internet Technology Co., Ltd., believes that:

First of all, when prosecuting infringing websites, a large number of infringing websites leave no information and the owners cannot be found. In fact, the registration information of these websites must be filed, but it is difficult for relevant departments to cooperate and provide it, no one can be found, and there is no prosecuting subject. In addition, there are also some websites whose servers are overseas, making it more difficult to find infringing entities. If we want to solve these problems, our competent departments need to continuously pay more attention to them. When infringement cases occur, relevant departments can proactively provide information on the infringing party and assist the prosecutor in obtaining evidence. If necessary, they can also use administrative means to be reasonable and legal. Sanctions for infringement.

Secondly, when prosecuting a search engine, the search engine has a moral obligation to block illegal links, but the relevant legal provisions are not strict and it is in fact difficult to prosecute. It is the indifference, inaction and even collusion of big search engines that give these pirated websites room to grow wantonly. In response to this situation, I hope that while these search engines blindly use the "safe haven principle" to excuse themselves, they will also remember that there is also a "red flag principle". If large search engines can actively support genuine products and adhere to the principle, pirated websites lack search traffic sources, the piracy situation will be greatly improved.

Finally, it sued Internet service providers that provided advertising for infringing websites to make money. Infringement websites provide free works using advertising as a means of profit, so if advertisers do not place advertisements on infringing websites, infringement enthusiasm can be greatly reduced. Google has promised that if Google ads are placed on pirated pages, rights holders can apply to Google to revoke the ads. However, domestic advertising companies do not have similar moral commitments, and there is no relevant legal basis for prosecution. This not only requires the improvement of relevant domestic laws and regulations, but also requires well-known domestic advertising platforms to raise copyright awareness. For identified pirated websites, they will freeze their advertising settlement and cut off their sources of income. Naturally, pirated websites will not be able to develop.

Copyright protection measures urgently need to cover the entire industry chain

. One of the key tasks of this "Jianwang 2016" special action is to carry out special rectification actions to crack down on infringement and piracy of online literature, strengthen copyright law enforcement and supervision of literary websites, and severely crack down on infringement and piracy of illegal dissemination of online literary works through websites, Post Bar, Weibo, WeChat, etc., and standardize the dissemination of literary works through browsers, search engines, etc.

Speaking of the development trend of online literature piracy, Hu Huijuan believes that the current online literature industry chain is relatively mature and has the largest number of developments, but the throughput capacity of the publishing industry is becoming increasingly weak. Audiobooks, adaptations of film and television dramas, game adaptations, anime adaptations and even the production of peripheral products are all directions for future efforts. And every direction means that a market for related industries needs to be nurtured and operated legally and orderly. When the market does not have a good way to make profits, or the audience is not wide, and without the participation of a large number of large companies and large platforms, the disorderly operation of individuals or small companies will produce large-scale infringement and piracy, such as audiobooks. In the field, in addition to a small number of authorized works, a large number of works have been adapted without authorization, and tomb raider thrillers are the hardest hit areas for infringement. While the entire market is still in a disorderly state, even large companies are participating in this disorderly competition. For example, the article "Hua Qian Gu" signed by Jinjiang Literature Network was made into an audiobook by an industry company without authorization and provided to readers.

Therefore, in the optimization of the online literature industry chain, some of them need to expect the prosperity and maturity of the upstream market, and some of them can be done now, such as copyright protection. It is not difficult to do copyright protection on the Internet if you are determined to do it. For example, the protection of film and television works and music works has been done very well. On the one hand, a large number of large platforms have matured with rich content and provided enough content, and netizens will automatically choose these platforms instead of some informal small websites. On the other hand, the country's law enforcement efforts are strong, large platforms dare not upload infringing content, and the content of small websites is difficult to search through search engines and other public tools, so the impact of infringing platforms becomes very limited. However, if it is also online literature, the treatment in this regard is far different. Infringement works are searched casually in search engines, and the number of infringing works is more than the number of authentic works, and they are often ranked at the top. Some search engines even actively crack the VIP content of authentic websites and directly provide pirated content to users.

However, as the field of online literature has received increasing attention, relevant departments have taken some actions to crack down on piracy. For example, on May 23, 2016, Baidu Company issued an announcement announcing that it will temporarily close all posts under its literature catalog in batches starting from now on, and comprehensively rectify and check other pirated and infringing content. We are very happy to see such results in the fight against piracy. Take Jinjiang alone as an example: After Baidu successively closed pirated post bars on the 23rd, despite the fact that daily updates and other data on the website were basically normal, revenue showed a significant upward trend. The single-day revenue hit a record high. The number of new registered users and new paid users both increased by 50%(the performance on the mobile side is even more obvious). The number of page views of domain names (Baidu domain names) accessed through search according to website statistics directly increased by 98%, and the number of visitors increased by 146.6%.

Cloud storage and application APP are the hardest hit areas for online piracy.

With the rapid development of the Internet and mobile communication technology, Internet copyright protection issues have become the focus of attention at home and abroad, and a series of regulations and measures have been introduced one after another. The "Jianwang 2016" special action will focus on investigating and punishing infringement and piracy through smart Mobile device third-party applications (APP), e-commerce platforms, online advertising alliances, private theaters (Xiaoying Bar) and other platforms; further standardize the copyright order of online music, online cloud storage space, and online reprinted news works. In order to further maintain good order in the online market, the State Administration of Cyberspace Information Technology also officially issued the "Regulations on the Management of Mobile Internet Application Information Services"(hereinafter referred to as the APP New Deal) on June 28, 2016. This regulation aims to strengthen the management of APP information services. Standardize, promote the healthy and orderly development of the industry and protect the legitimate rights and interests of individuals.

Zhu Wei, deputy director of the Communication Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, said that the implementation of a series of regulatory actions such as the APP New Deal and "Sword Network 2016" is expected to end the "troubled times" situation in my country's APP market. For example, the New Deal stipulates that those who provide APP information services "should obtain relevant qualifications stipulated in laws and regulations in accordance with the law", and APP platforms should be filed within "30 days" of online operation of the business. "Relevant qualifications" refer to the qualifications of the main APP business. For example, medical apps require qualification certificates from relevant departments, video apps require relevant licenses, information release apps require relevant qualifications, etc. These all reflect the needs for restructuring my country's industrial market in the context of "Internet +". Regardless of the development of industrial technology, whether it is "Internet +" or the sharing economy, it is a rule of law economy. The result of no legal regulation will inevitably lead to disorder. The pure pursuit of commercial interests will ignore social public interests and harm the legitimate rights and interests of users. In practice, a large number of illegal apps make up the number. Users are easy to download but difficult to uninstall. Apps that have obviously been shut down are secretly running traffic behind the scenes. A simple flashlight APP may become a "spy" in the hands of users, stealing user information, sending commercial advertisements frequently, and even reselling this information.

There have been too many APP chaos in my country over the years, it is too difficult to supervise millions of APP, and the relevant qualification review departments are too complicated, relying only on the special management of a certain department, which is really difficult to control chaos. The new policy clearly regards cyberspace agencies at all levels as the main body of law enforcement and supervision, and cyberspace agencies will coordinate various departments, make overall plans, and end the situation of "water control in Kowloon". There is no doubt that this will be very effective. At the same time, for APP operators, this also minimizes the operator's institutional costs and is conducive to the healthy development of the APP market. At present, some achievements have been made in standardizing APP. The APP New Deal divides the online real-name system into two major levels: one is to require APP providers to have a real-name system for registered users; the other is to require APP stores to review the real-name system of product providers on shelves. The real-name content of APP provider registration information is not single. Users can real-name names through mobile phone numbers or other information such as ID cards. At present, the implementation of the real-name system for telecommunications in my country is still relatively optimistic. The vast majority of mobile phones have real-name certification.

Zhu Wei believes that "Jianwang 2016" should strengthen the protection and governance of "property rights" in copyright in addition to the "personal rights" in copyright that protect the integrity of works. Tencent's WeChat function of applying for originality protects the "personal rights" of the original author's copyright. Although articles reproduced on public accounts are marked, there are many public accounts that use the reproduced articles to make profits without the authorization of the original author. Can relevant policies be introduced in the future to combat this behavior of casually reproducing for profit without the consent of the author and copyright owner?

In the use of this kind of online cloud disk, netizens only need a network link, account number and password when uploading and publishing content, making it more difficult to trace. Whether network service providers should take responsibility is also a difficult point in governance. Now that cloud disk has become a place where online piracy and infringement are re-transmitted, why cannot it be managed? The first is that when applying for online cloud disk, the real-name system has not yet been implemented. Second, when the original author or copyright owner discovers that he has been infringed, the procedures for the materials provided during the process of applying for deletion from cloud disk are too cumbersome and often cannot prove his identity as the rights holder. Even if you prove that you are the rights holder, there is no way to completely delete the infringed documents because of the replicability of the Internet. Even if it is completely deleted, although there are provisions in the law on what kind of compensation liability the Internet service provider will bear and under what circumstances will it bear joint and several liability, during the implementation process, almost all websites can use net neutrality and technology centrality to defend. Therefore, this year's "Sword Network" operation should be in-depth studied and implemented at the technical level.

Interconnection to build a new order in the online copyright market

Regarding online copyright protection, Hu Huijuan said that Jinjiang Literature Network actively provides suggestions and suggestions to relevant departments. First, it is recommended that relevant departments interview large companies that have infringed and use administrative means to crack down on piracy; Second, it is recommended that relevant departments use alliance advertising as a source to conduct joint law enforcement to cut off the sources of benefits for pirated websites; Third, it is recommended that relevant departments concentrate and analyze the results of users 'reports on piracy, focus on cracking down on the focus of complaints, and establish typical cases.

Zhu Wei believes that the current development trend of Internet copyright must be combined with "Internet +" and the sharing economy. How to respect the will of the right holder, copyright law or "sword net" special action should also be explored. With the arrival of Internet sharing economy, the profit mode or control mode of copyright has changed. We should have the consciousness of the times and fully consider the characteristic needs of the new period when enforcing the law.

Many industry insiders said that the establishment of the network copyright ecosystem is not limited to the governance and maintenance at the national level, nor is it an enterprise's own copyright maintenance behavior, but the interconnection between the state, associations, enterprises and individuals at multiple levels, and has a highly unified legal awareness of consciously observing and consciously safeguarding the rights of network copyright behaviors. Only in this way can we truly purify and create a good network copyright environment on the basis of severely cracking down on network infringement behaviors. Realize the self-supervision and conscious maintenance of the network copyright market, so as to make the network copyright ecology carry out a virtuous circle.

Editor: yvette