The challenge of copyright enforcement in china's movie industry

Section IV: Improving the consistency of the judicial system

China made significant progress concerning the consistency of its judicial system. If in the 1990 IP tribunals were not really effective, lots of improvements are perceptible since recent years, providing a more fair and transparent system to IPRs owners.¹²⁷ It is manifested in particular in the fact that trials are now opened to the public so that judges are less likely to be corrupted. ¹²⁸ Judicial decisions also started to be published, participating to the transparency of the judicial system and helping to increase the predictability of IPR tribunals' decisions.¹²⁹ Moreover, in 2014 China has created specialized IP courts in order to have a greater number of trained and independent judges.¹³⁰ IP courts will provide for an even more harmonized Chinese IP judicial system.¹³¹ It will also lessen IP tribunals' burden of handling numerous cases, increasing the effectiveness of copyright protection.

Section V: Ameliorating copyright administrative enforcement

Moreover, China has multiple projects toward an amelioration of copyright administrative enforcement. In the 2011 promotion plan for the implementation of the National IP Strategy, the State IP Organization (SIPO) proposed to establish not only a mediation mechanism for copyright disputes but also a mechanism linking effectively the judicial and administrative agencies.¹³² SIPO also clarified the role of the provinces in order to enforce IPRs by stating that the provinces must «enhance the international competence of regional intellectual properties by supporting and instructing relevant enterprises to strengthen the international layout of intellectual properties in major industries and technical field», «promoting the improvement to the competent advantage of intellectual properties in trade in goods and making use of policies on finance, taxation, banking and trade»; «encouraging the enterprises engaged in service outsourcing to strengthen the storage of intellectual properties.» If those guidelines are followed they will definitely strengthen copyright protection.

127 Dimitrov Martin, see above note 50, p.35.

128 Dimitrov Martin, see above note 50, p.106.

129 Ibid, p.107.

130 Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on the Jurisdiction of the IP courts in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, 31/10/2014.

131 Reinhold Cohn Group, China's new intellectual property groups, 5/03/2015, www.rcip.co.il/en/article/chinas-new-intellectual-property-courts/ (visited on the 7/11/2015).

132 Section 69, SIPO, the promotion plan for the implementation of the National IP Strategy, 2011.

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In its 2014 promotion plan for the implementation of the National IP Strategy, SIPO established a list of measures that needs to be followed. The inevitable revision of the Copyright Law of the PRC is one of them.¹³³ The implementation of a campaign against online copyright piracy is also among the many measures meant to improve copyright protection.¹³⁴ The mass media helps to reach a maximum number of Chinese citizens quickly. This kind of campaign will raise public's awareness about the need to protect and respect copyrights, helping to increase the respect of the rule of law. Copyright must be supervised on a large-scale online in order to improve the mechanism of protection.¹³⁵ Formulating and promulgating «the Action plan for Deepening the Implementation of the National IP Strategy (2014-2020) was also part of SIPO's 2014 promotion plan. The Action plan also sets multiple measures in order to enhance copyright protection and more generally IPRs protection, but in greater details than SIPO's promotion plan. Concerning audio-visual works, the Action plan aims to improve their regulation.¹³⁶ Strengthening administrative enforcement of IPRs is once again on the list as well as pushing officials to enforce laws in a normative and fair way.¹³⁷ The urgent need for improvement is manifest in all-new measures taken by Chinese government. It is just a matter of time before effective progress will be seen in enforcing IPRs.