Online original works infringement, more prosecutions and less copyright protection, should keep up with Internet thinking

If the copyright collective management organization can establish a more effective mechanism, better play its role, and have professional organizations defend rights, it can also solve the dilemma of natural persons 'rights protection to a certain extent.

remove author names, modify titles, screen shots of video content, and convert video dubbing into text mode... The reporter's investigation found that at present, many content producers on the Internet have encountered "pseudo-original" problems, and there are many infringement methods.

How to implant more Internet genes into original protection? The reporter interviewed industry experts.

Why do rights holders rarely sue?

"Copyright includes personal rights and property rights." The essence of 'pseudo-originality' is plagiarism, which is infringement of the copyright of the rights holder." said Zhu Wei, deputy director of the Communication Law Research Center at China University of Political Science and Law.

Zhao Zhan, a special researcher and IT lawyer at the Intellectual Property Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, also believes that common "pseudo-originality" involves infringing on the rights of the original creator in many aspects. Reprinting without authorization, even without signature, violates the right of authorship; modifying the name of the work or making some simple adjustments or deletions to the article infringes the right of modification of the work; in addition, there is also infringement of the right to integrity of the work, the right to disseminate information online, and the right to copy.

"Originators of written works rarely go to court to sue for violations of their rights." Zhao Zhan said that there are three standards for compensation for copyright infringement: first, the actual loss of the right holder; second, the income from infringement; and third, the compensation for written works is calculated based on the number of words, with reference to the standard of tens of yuan per thousand words. Loss of investment revenue, loss of traffic, loss of advertising revenue, and infringement income of the other party are difficult to prove, and are generally determined according to the standard of tens of yuan per thousand words. Considering users 'reading habits, most articles published on new media platforms are relatively short. Original creators have to pay notarization fees, litigation fees, and lawyer fees, which cost at least several thousand yuan. "It is not cost-effective for rights holders."

Zhao Zhanhe told reporters that when the copyright of paintings, photography and other pictures is infringed, rights holders will sue more than written works. The reason is that the compensation standard for art works is higher than that of written works, with the compensation being mostly several thousand yuan, and the two parties will settle more.

Since the emergence of media, compared with the past, content on the Internet has been created by news organizations and platforms to be transformed into content produced by users themselves. Copyright belongs to the individual user, and this change in the subject of rights also has an impact on rights protection.

Zhao Zhan said that in the past, copyright owners were concentrated. In most cases, traditional media authorized online media. If online media reprinted multiple content without authorization, traditional media defended rights through litigation, and the benefits would be higher while the cost remained unchanged. Since the media era, platforms have encouraged users to produce content, and rights subjects have been dispersed. When copyright infringement occurs, each rights holder may encounter difficulties such as difficulty in obtaining evidence, high costs and low compensation when defending his rights by himself. Therefore, many people give up their rights protection. "In the past, organizations had relatively strong awareness and capabilities of copyright protection. After the change of rights subjects, rights holders have relatively weak legal awareness and low ability to defend rights."

Platforms should actively fulfill their responsibilities.

"The core purpose of protecting originality in the 'Internet +' era has not changed. The idea of protection is not to restrict communication, but to protect originality while playing the communication function, so that more people's works can be seen by more people." Zhu Wei said.

How to protect original content? Both experts believe that the responsibility of online platforms should be put at the forefront.

Zhu Wei believes that the original application protection mechanism of the WeChat platform focuses more on protecting the personal rights of the original creator. Weibo takes advantage of the community's self-discipline mechanism and can be deleted immediately as long as the report certificate is released first. Nowadays, each major platform has some original protection mechanisms, each with its own characteristics.

"It is not difficult to identify 'pseudo-originals'. The question is whether the platform actively fulfills its main responsibilities." Zhu Wei said that it is very easy for platforms to discover real creators using Internet technology, but some platforms are lazy to do it. Users don't like it very much and find it troublesome. The online platform has a "dual identity" and may be both a content provider and a service provider. Almost all originality and "pseudo-originality" are spread through the platform; after users discover infringement, they notify them to delete them in accordance with the law and require rights protection. Issued to the platform. Therefore, the platform should assume a main responsibility. Platforms should actively implement safe haven rules and must take necessary measures when notified by rights holders.

Zhao Zhan divided the original protection responsibility of online platforms into three dimensions. First, an original protection mechanism should be established. Second, all large platforms now have infringement handling mechanisms, but some are inefficient and some have light penalties. For example, the complaint is deleted once, and the next time the infringement is infringed, it will still be deleted. The penalty is too light. Third, the rights protection mechanism established by the platform should further reduce the cost of rights holders.

"At present, the original protection mechanisms of major platforms often only work on their own platforms. If it is cross-platform plagiarism, these protection mechanisms will not be easy to use." Zhu Wei said.

"If originality is not protected and everyone's original power is not protected, then no one will engage in originality, just copy and paste will do. In this way, the Internet, especially the creative field, will become a desert." Zhu Wei said that the next step for online platforms should be thinking about how to protect the rights of rights holders while encouraging communication. The channel is from personal rights to the protection of property rights, and property rights are more from the perspective of economic compensation.

Original protection ideas need to be upgraded

Zhu Wei found through theoretical research that for copyright infringement issues on the Internet, the Anglo-American legal system emphasizes the protection of property rights, and the Civil Legal System emphasizes the protection of personal rights.

Zhu Wei told reporters that the road to creative protection on the Internet has just begun. In the context of "Internet +", the attention economy has gained the upper hand, and this new business format is still in its infancy. Scholars are still studying the degree of copyright protection, how protection methods need to follow up on the development of technology, and how compensation should be done.

Zhu Wei said that the system of copyright law is a product of the Web 1.0 and 2.0 era. The protection methods for Internet copyright are relatively backward, but there is no particularly good protection method based on payment of copyright. In the era of the Internet economy, the property rights of creators have been combined with traffic, attention economy, big data, etc. Original protection should be viewed with the thinking of Web 3.0 and 4.0. He believes that especially after the emergence of the sharing economy, more discussions should be made on the compensation mechanism in copyright. Once the work is published, the payment method can consider using more advertising sharing, traffic transfer, or other negotiated methods. Protecting the rights of works and authors in other ways is feasible and a way forward.

Regarding the innovation of the platform's original protection mechanism, Zhu Wei believes that the platform needs to innovate more technical means to protect the personal rights of the original creator; to protect the property rights of the original creator, traffic rewards, point rewards, advertising sharing, advertising alliances, and column reprint sharing sharing can be used. In other ways, the copyright owner can participate in the division as the "boss" role. The strong combination of platform and original creators allows original creators not only to sell their own works, but also to sell their own influence.

Zhao Zhan believes that after the revision of the Copyright Law, punitive damages have been provided for copyright infringement, and the compensation standard for written works has been increased, but overall the compensation standard is still relatively low. The standard of compensation for copyright infringement in judicial practice should be improved.

In response to the difficulty of natural person rights holders in safeguarding their rights, Zhao Zhan proposed another solution-to further improve my country's collective copyright management system. The copyright collective management organization shall take rights protection actions in accordance with the law for infringement of the copyright of written works managed by the association. The current problems with copyright collective management organizations are the excessive fees charged and the opaque distribution mechanism. If the copyright collective management organization can establish a more effective mechanism, better play its role, and have professional organizations defend rights, it can also solve the dilemma of natural persons 'rights protection to a certain extent.

Editor: Nancy