On November 11, the 23rd Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress passed a decision on amending the Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China, which will come into force on June 1, 2021 (please click here for details). The revised Copyright Law has improved the relevant provisions of copyright protection in cyberspace, especially greatly increasing the upper limit of statutory compensation for infringement and clarifying the principle of punitive compensation, so as to further protect the legitimate rights and interests of creators.

Copyright enforcement is a major difficulty in the protection of copyrights at present. The newly revised Copyright Law provides a series of punishment measures, which greatly increases the cost of infringement. For intentional infringement, if the circumstances are serious, punitive damages ranging from one to five times the amount of compensation may be applied. Where it is difficult to calculate the actual loss of the rights holder, the illegal income of the infringer, or the royalties, the people's court shall, according to the circumstances of the infringement, make a judgment to pay compensation of not less than 500 RMB but not more than 5 million RMB.

The newly revised Copyright Law also makes adjustments to the definition of "works", and modifies the expression of "film works and works created by methods analogous to film making" in the current law to "audio-visual works". This means that the scope of copyright protection is further expanded, and new types of works such as online short video will get strong legal protection.

Regarding the issue of insufficient and mild enforcement means by the regulatory department, the newly revised Copyright Law stipulates that, when investigating the suspected infringement acts of copyright and copyright related rights, the competent copyright department may inquire the parties concerned and investigate the situation related to the suspected illegal acts; and may conduct on-site inspection on the places and articles of the parties suspected of illegal acts; consult and copy contracts, invoices, account books and other relevant materials related to the suspected illegal act; and may seal up or detain the places and articles suspected of illegal acts.

The newly revised Copyright Law also makes it clear that in order to protect copyright and copyright related rights, the rights holder may take technical measures. In addition, it also defines the copyright ownership of cooperative works and other contents.