Websites should shoulder their legal and moral responsibilities
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By Guan Jianwen
Vice President, People's Daily Online
As far as I recall, People's Daily Online was involved very few legal disputes in the first few years of its existence. But the situation has changed. Our Website is now sued 3 to 5 times a year, mainly about copyright violation. Though this is a trivial number of cases compared with other news Websites, it reflects the rising trend of Internet-related legal disputes in China. In 2008, local courts heard 14,951 copyright violation cases, up 50.78 percent over 2007. More than 40 percent of the cases concerned online copyright. In the same year, Beijing courts heard 3,493 copyright cases, of which 1,281, 37 percent of the total, were about the Internet. During the first three quarters of 2009, there were 1,573 online copyright disputes in Beijing, accounting for 48 percent of copyright cases in the city; 292 more than the previous year. During the first 10 months of 2009, there were around 700 cases involving video-sharing Websites in the Haidian District of Beijing alone.
Our Website has always placed great importance on copyright issues. We have signed hundreds of information exchange and republishing contracts with both traditional and online media organizations. But we still face copyright infringement problems. They can be divided into three major types. The first involves publishing information not covered by contracts. The second type arises from confusion caused by unclear assignments of copyright. The third arises when our partner Websites in fact don't possess the right to publish information online as claimed in their contracts with us.
Of course, the People's Daily Online's copyright is also regularly violated by both domestic and foreign Websites and traditional media. But we have neither the time nor resources to follow up these cases.
Experience has taught us that news Websites need to manage their staff well and keep a close eye on how they republish information. Our Website provides lists of all our contracted media organizations for our editors to refer to, and instructs them in all the dos and don'ts. For example, we forbid our staff to use unauthorized literary works, news, and photos or videos without clear copyright. The editors and column heads are told very clearly that the responsibility will fall on their heads if they violate the rules.
Many Websites in China have reached agreement on the need for self-regulation. A total of 112 news Websites signed the Online Copyright Protection Convention during the second China Online Media Forum held by People's Daily Online in 2002. The convention said those who re-publish information should "be faithful to the original text and not add any extra content without authorization; protect the information of the original author and text; clearly print the name of original author, the publishing media and dateline; not add any misleading words or sentences which may indicate that the copied work was created by the copier." On February 22, 2008, eight news Websites, including the People's Daily Online, initiated and signed the China Online Audio and Video Program Self-Regulatory Convention and as of April this year a total of 131 Internet media organizations had joined them.
There are many other examples of self-regulatory frameworks among Chinese Websites. Sina.com.cn, Sohu.com and 163.com, China's three major web portals, set up the China Internet Industry Credibility and Self-Regulation Alliance in Beijing on September 15, 2004. On January 28, 2005, The Internet Society of China established the Online Copyright Alliance whose members include major telecom operators, Web-based content providers and copyright owners. Nineteen Websites that provide blog services including the People's Daily Online, Bokee.com and Sina.com.cn, together with blogger representatives, signed the Civilized Internet Self-Discipline Convention on April 19, 2006. A dozen well-known blog providers including People's Daily Online, Sina.com.cn, Sohu.com, qq.com, tom.com, cn.msn.com, Qianlong.com, hexun.com, blog.com.cn, yesky.com, yahoo.com, voc.com.cn, blshe.com signed the Blog Service Self-Discipline Convention on August 21, 2007. Fifteen widely-known video Websites began self-regulating the copyright of popular online TV shows and films on September 16, 2010.
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