Copyright services help dig deep into the gold mines of the film and television industry and fight against pirated websites

Before and after the production of film and television works, how should we use the copyright value for investment and financing, how to authorize online distribution, and how to carry out anti-piracy rights protection after being infringed? Focusing on these hot issues, on February 22, guests discussed this at the "Promotion Conference on Deep Integration of Copyright Services and Film and Television Industry" held during the 2017 China Copyright Services Annual Conference.

. As a copyright industry with high capital investment, high intellectual crystallization, high market risk, and high economic returns, the film and television industry, whether it is from the creation, broadcasting, distribution, and transaction of film and television dramas, or the investment and financing of works and the development of derivatives, are inseparable from the in-depth exploration and protection of copyright value. With the rapid development of the film and television industry, the value gained by film and television works through copyright services has also received increasing attention.

So, before and after the production of film and television works, how should we use the copyright value for investment and financing, how to authorize online distribution, and how to carry out anti-piracy rights protection after being infringed? Focusing on these hot issues, on February 22, guests discussed this at the "Promotion Conference on Deep Integration of Copyright Services and Film and Television Industry" held during the 2017 China Copyright Services Annual Conference.

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reporter from "China Press, Publication, Radio and Television News" learned at the promotion meeting that in recent years, the average annual output of domestic TV dramas has been around 15,000 episodes, and the market is saturated, of which only 5000 episodes are profitable. Nearly one-third of TV series revenue is flat, and the other one-third have no broadcast platform or market.

In recent years, many production units have competed for popular actors and pursued special effects in order to cater to the audience. However, the ratings or box office have still failed miserably. The reason is that there is something wrong with the story. "The standard for all projects in the film and television industry is scripts, so we have been working hard on scripts and can directly provide companies with the best quality scripts and provide favorable services." Shi Xiansheng, deputy director of the Film and Television Copyright Industry Alliance, said this.

The Film and Television Copyright Industry Alliance was established in 2014 and was jointly initiated by China Copyright Protection Center, China Television Artists Association, China Film Association, China Internet Society, etc. In 2016, the Film and Television Copyright Industry Alliance won a national project called "Copyright Asset Demonstration Application Management Project". The project focuses on the copyright field of written works and film and television scripts. It uses the alliance's service advantages and professional understanding of copyright to create a high-quality script supply and docking channels and platforms.

"Different entities give full play to their respective advantages and target young screenwriters. Whether it is screenwriters or film and television organizations, you can put excellent works on the platform through different windows. We capture information, including copyright information, in a structured way. Copyright information is to ensure future rights protection, and piracy and disputes will be clarified from the source." said Ma Lihai, director of the Copyright Industry Research Department of the China Copyright Protection Center.

At present, the domestic screenwriter market is basically scattered and working, and there is no large-scale consortium. In order to solve this problem, the alliance has also set up a special screenwriter agent position. Agents can come forward to negotiate the price of the script with the producer and sign a copyright contract, which can also save the time for the producer to find the script, help the producer eliminate immature scripts in advance, and deliver the operable scripts to the producer. At the same time, they can also provide major services such as customized scripts, original scripts, agent scripts, copyright protection and rights protection, and script incubation according to different market needs.

With scripts as the leader, the Film and Television Copyright Industry Alliance hopes to provide market value for screenwriters and provide copyright protection and rights protection for scripts. "As a practitioner in the film and television industry, first, I want to call on our film and television copyright industry to strengthen industry self-discipline and respect originality. The second is to remind our creators to strengthen legal awareness and rights protection awareness and maintain a good environment." Liu Yanjun, vice chairman and secretary-general of the Film and Television Copyright Industry Alliance, called this.

Using copyright to enhance the wealth and influence of film and television works

To date, the most precious wealth of the film and television industry is no longer simply movie box office or TV advertising revenue. The IP attributes of the film and television works themselves have the most market value.

"Last year, we helped rights holders authorize 'Huluwa' to a certain clothing manufacturer. We have rich experience in licensing IP to other fields other than film and television." Ma Lihai believes that these other areas are a gold mine for the film and television industry.

The prerequisite for discovering gold mines is that the copyright ownership of these film and television works is clear enough to provide them with sufficient copyright protection. Chen Yujia, deputy director of the Copyright Industry Research Department of China Copyright Protection Center, said that since 2016, China Copyright Protection Center has launched the copyright service promotion cultural financial product "Edition Rongbao". The basic logic of this product is to deeply integrate and integrate the business processes of copyright pledge registration agencies and banks, guarantee, evaluation and other institutions. As long as you have valuable copyright assets and the ownership is clear enough, by attaching some pledges, You can obtain lower-cost indirect financing services in the short term through banks.

Hu Bo, dean of the Shanghai Film Academy in Vancouver, Canada, has the experience of focusing on IP from the beginning, turning passive into proactive, and providing copyright protection at the beginning of the creation of the work. He used the newly filmed movie "Steel Sky" as an example. This film currently "solves the IP of movies first, the IP of TV second, the IP of theme parks third, and the IP of games fourth."

"Based on my own experience in the past few years, whether IP is copyright or intangible property, it is inseparable from four stages. The first is confirmation of rights, the second is authorization, the third is rights protection, and the fourth is other supporting value-added services. As long as you have the rights and want to maximize value development, you must go through these four stages." Ma Lihai told the film and television industry practitioners present that if you want to develop good IP, you must not miss any of these four stages.

Fight to the end with film and television piracy websites

. Even if copyright protection is done well, it may be pirated and face the dilemma of difficulty in safeguarding rights. Liu Zhengcao, director of Tencent's video rights protection and secretary-general of the Copyright Research Center of Tencent Research Institute, made a model calculation that the annual losses that infringement and piracy may cause to the Internet video industry in the film and television industry reach 15 billion yuan. "After years of hard work, infringement and piracy have been very well contained, but it does not mean that piracy is dead, because piracy and genuine are an inherent contradiction. If there is genuine, there will be piracy, but now their methods are more concealed." Liu Zhengcao said.

According to the reporter, with the development of technology, the division of labor in the piracy industry has become more fragmented. A black industry chain has been formed in different links such as websites, players, and servers. Many people use the free space of cloud storage as their own infringement and piracy. A distribution center for free piracy, and use current technology to the extreme.

Liu Zhengcao said that information received through the police last year showed that a verified pirated small website owner had an advertising revenue of more than 3 million yuan in two years, and the number of such small websites engaged in illegal operations was very large.

In order to protect rights, Tencent Video has done a lot of work in the past few years. In 2016, some major Tencent Video projects such as "New Songs of China" and "Ghost Blows Out the Lamp" were infringed. Liu Zhengcao revealed that in 2016, they handled a total of more than 2 million infringing links."One company can handle more than 2 million links. You can imagine the number of infringing and pirated companies."

More than ten years ago, the value of a film sold to a website was tens of thousands of yuan or less. Nowadays, a film can sell for tens of millions or hundreds of millions of yuan. This is the benefits and benefits that genuine products bring to the industry. Liu Zhengcao said that because of the legalization, the rights and interests of works, creators and producers in the film and television industry are well protected, and more people will have higher enthusiasm to devote themselves to creation. He hopes that through the joint efforts of government departments, industry organizations and enterprises, the copyright environment in the film and television industry will be better.

Editor: yvette