Online battle between 'freedom' and 'copyright'

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, November 15, 2003

Online battle between 'freedom' and 'copyright'

The magic powers of boy wizard Harry Potter were not enough to prevent him from being pirated by the Internet in China, which as evoked a national debate on "freedom" and "copyright" in cyberspace.

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The magic powers of boy wizard Harry Potter were not enough to prevent him from being pirated by the Internet in China, which as evoked a national debate on "freedom" and "copyright" in cyberspace.

Celebrated as one of children's most favored books, the "Harry Potter" series published its fifth installment "The Order of the Phoenix" on June 21. Beijing-based People's Literature Publishing House started its translation as soon as it got the book's copyright.

Some people, however, took the chance to put a Chinese version of the book on the Internet before its legal debut, bringing huge losses to the publishing house.

Experts pointed out that, both at home and abroad, the fight against Internet piracy is far from satisfactory. Internet proponents, on the other hand, hold that abundant information and convenient access are the core attractions of the Internet over other kinds of media, while too strict limits will surely restrain the free spread of resources.

The Internet is particularly popular among college students, who have access to a campus-wide information system and a great deal of free services for downloading software, films and music. In fact, most of these services are illegal.

"The Internet is for sharing resources. Generally speaking, students have greater demand for knowledge and information than other social groups, but without a stable income, it is impossible for us to pay every copyright," college student Luo Yongshan said.

An Internet writer with the nickname of "ruffian dragon" said that most people post their letters online simply because they want more people to read.

"Reading articles online is just like borrowing books from a friend. Even if you have a strong sense of copyright, you are unlikely to pay the money to the author." he said.

However, some people disagree. In February 2001, Wu Weijie, who wrote an article named "Rose in Dusk", went to court claiming that Rongshuxia Computer Co. Ltd in Shanghai, China's east economic hub, infringed on his copyright and asked for 1 yuan (0.12 US dollars) compensation. The case ended with the company's open apology published on its homepage.

What Wu wanted, experts said, was not money, but his deserved rights. In fact, more and more people have set out to protect their intellectual property rights (IPR) through legal channels.

"Every year, China's courts accept around 5,000 to 6,000 cases involving IPR and hundreds of them concern Internet IPR." said Jiang Peizhi, presiding judge of the third civil judgment court of China's Supreme People's Court.

Xu Jiali, the top lawyer with Beijing's L&A Law Firm, thinks that sharing knowledge does not mean using it freely. Most people have a very weak sense of protecting their IPR on the Net, and most pirates also didn't realize that they had infringed on other's rights.

"So far, no country in the world has found a proper solution to this problem." Xu added.

Many website operators argued that there are tens of thousands of websites in China, involving millions of works of authors and musicians, so it is unrealistic to sign contracts with them one by one.

On the other hand, given the fact that no agreed charging standard on Internet works exists, individual authors may not want to bargain with multiple users after each of their works is published online.

Experts suggested establishing a kind of agent, issuing remuneration to those Net writers who have applied as well as charging fees from those website operators.

Luo Donchuan, deputy presiding judge of the third civil judgment court of China's Supreme People's Court, said that if wrong action happens from using works on the Internet, the website should be responsible for it. And to enhance healthy development of the Internet, the problems concerning Internet IPR must be closely studied and corresponding solutions worked out.

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