On April 25, the National Copyright Administration (NCAC) held a media interaction conference on the third revision of Copyright Law in Beijing. Head of NCAC Regulation Department Wang Ziqiang unscrambled the controversial clauses in the revised draft.

NCAC is not a spokesperson for any stakeholder

At the conference, Wang Ziqiang firstly stressed that NCAC is “not a legislative body”, but “partly undertook the preliminary work of the third revision work of Copyright Law. Besides, Wang said NCAC is “not a spokesperson for any stakeholder, but a coordinator of different stakeholders in the legal relations of Copyright Law”.

NCAC has no direct personnel contact with collective management organizations

For the question that the revised draft’s giving more rights to collective management organizations may lead to “public power monopoly”, Wang Ziqiang explained that NCAC and collective management organizations have no direct personnel contact. For the opinions of musicians to collective management organizations, Wang said that the collective management organization should be the home of copyright holders, however, at present, copyright holders became dissidents of collective management organizations.

The regulation that “the original author may declare that it should not be used” does not accord with international practice.

For the controversial Articles 46, 48, 60 and 70 in the draft, Wang Ziqiang underlined that all these revisions were made in accordance with international practice. And relevant regulations of the United States, Germany, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan were also taken as references. For the deletion of the regulation that the original author may declare that it should not be used, Wang Ziqiang said “other countries including the United States, Germany, Japan and South Africa have no such regulation since it is against statutory license.” Since other entities including Japan, Korea and Taiwan all regulate the protection period is three months, China also rules three months to avoid monopoly of big enterprises.

Article 69 does not shield Internet piracy

Article 69 in the draft rules that technical service providers take no examination responsibility, which is regarded as sheltering Internet piracy. Wang Ziqiang interpreted that “this is common regulation of all the nations in the world for network technical service providers,… China’s regulation is only applicable to purely technical service providers, not inclusive of service providers with subjective factors”.

Song Ke said “we’re glad to have the opportunity to make our voices heard”

The founder of Maitian Music Production Company Song Ke believed that the draft ignored the fact that copyright status in China is relatively worse. “…comparatively speaking, the draft does not take all right holders into account.” Besides, Song Ke thought “…record companies need monopolize copyrights to develop and three-month-long protection period is not enough….”At last, Song Ke expressed that “the revised draft embodies the progress of legal construction and we are pleased to have the opportunity to make our voices heard”.

（Source: IPR in China）