Look at the following text:

Beijing Haidian District People’s Court made a first-instance judgment in the case of Beijing Chuanglian Company suing Xinnuoli Company for plagiarizing its web pages and advertisements, requiring the defendant to remit Meng International Business Co., Ltd. (Xinnuoli) deleted the plagiarized part of the plaintiff Chuanglian Company from its website; publicly apologized to the plaintiff Chuanglian Company for the plagiarism on its own website; and compensated Chuanglian Company for economic losses of 40,000 yuan. Pay legal fees of 33,000 yuan.

In September last year, Chuanglian Company, which is engaged in domain name registration and website hosting business, filed a lawsuit with the Beijing Haidian District People’s Court against Xinnuoli Company, which is also engaged in the website platform business (IPP), saying that since May last year , starting from the website and print advertisements, they began to imitate the homepage structure of Chuanglian Company, and divided the business scope and product grading creativity, and then developed to directly plagiarizing the website page of Chuanglian Company. In July last year, its webpage even appeared to retain the original content of Chuanglian Company. Affiliated company’s email address. The plaintiff believed that Xinnoli Company had plagiarized a large number of Chuanglian Company in its website and advertisements, which constituted unfair competition and copyright infringement. In its advertisements, the domain name registration price is lower than the cost price and deceives consumers, which is an act of unfair competition. The company believes that "plagiarism" is a personal behavior and is caused by misinformation on the page.

Because of the new issue, this minor lawsuit lasted for half a year and attracted great attention in the industry. People in the e-commerce industry hope to have laws to follow, and calls for "legislation" as soon as possible are getting louder and louder.

Copyright issues in website content

Illegal reprinting and plagiarism of website content is a common problem on the Chinese Internet, and the severity is higher than that of English websites. Although as the saying goes, the law does not punish everyone, but breaking the law is breaking the law. With the further implementation of China's Copyright Law, we believe that copyright protection will receive more and more attention in the Chinese Internet world.

This article will clarify some issues regarding online copyright protection.

The concept itself is not protected by copyright

What is protected by copyright is the expression of the concept, idea, creativity, name, title, slogan, etc.

For example, copyright protection, or the concept itself, can be used and expressed by everyone and is not protected by copyright. But works resulting from the expression of opinions are protected by copyright, such as the article itself.

This is why everyone can talk about various concepts and things. It does not mean that the person who invented a concept or word has exclusive rights to this concept and others cannot talk about it. However, the specific articles, works, paintings, sounds, etc. are protected by copyright.

Published works do not mean that they become public property

No matter after the original author publishes the work on the website, or in magazines, newspapers, television, radio, etc., It does not mean that these works can be quoted, plagiarized and reproduced at will. Even if the work is published in a magazine and the magazine has paid the royalties, it does not mean that the magazine can re-publish it at will, or publish it in other forms such as a book, which requires the consent of the original author.

The work can be used fairly

This fair use can include the purpose of scientific research and education, such as citing part of the work in school textbooks, such as when others introduce and comment on a certain work. , or when explaining a certain issue, appropriately quote other people's works.

In news reports, the media inevitably reproduces or quotes other people's works in order to explain the problem. These situations are not considered an infringement of copyright.

Of course, under the banner of fair use, using the entire work of others on your own website does not constitute fair use, but is illegal.

Reprinting and plagiarism

It is illegal to reprint or even plagiarize other people's works without the author's consent, even if the original author's name and original source link are indicated.

The essence of copyright protection is to obtain the original author's permission, so even if you have indicated the original author's name or even linked back to the original source page, it does not mean that you have the original author's permission. Reprinting or even plagiarism is illegal.

In this sense, too many Chinese websites are illegally reprinting or plagiarizing. Unless the original author has stated in his webpage or article that reprinting is allowed, in this case the reprinting party must also comply with the reprinting method required by the original author.

Rewriting or changing the original work before publishing it is also an infringement of the original work

Some websites collect content from other places, make small modifications, and publish it on their own websites. I don't think this is illegal. In fact, it still violates the copyright law of the original author. Because according to copyright law, it is illegal to quote or reprint the substantial content of an original work without the permission of the original author.

Realization of copyright protection

Usually, works are protected by copyright from the date of publication to 50 years after the author's death.

Copyright of works is automatically protected. No matter where the original author publishes it or in what form, once it is published, the work is automatically protected by copyright. The original author does not need to register copyright, register any trademark, go to any organization to declare copyright, or declare copyright in his own work. All these products are automatically protected by copyright once they are created.

Foreigners’ works are also protected by copyright in China

China’s copyright law not only protects the copyright of its own people and institutions, but also the original author’s nationality or long-term residence has signed relevant copyrights with China. Convention, are protected by Chinese Copyright Law. These conventions include the Nepal Convention, the Paris Convention, the International Copyright Convention, and the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, among others. Therefore, unauthorized reproduction and plagiarism of content from authors in other countries is also illegal in China.

So please note that although Sino-Singapore Network Technology is a registered company in Singapore, all content on this website is protected by Chinese copyright law.

Possible penalties for copyright infringement

The original author may pursue civil or criminal prosecution against the person or institution that infringes the copyright. According to the law, infringers must bear the responsibility to stop the damage, eliminate the impact, apologize, compensate for losses, etc., and pursue serious criminal liability.

The liability for compensation for losses here is of concern to website developers, but the actual losses of the rights holder or the illegal gains of the infringer often cannot be clearly defined.

For example, if someone illegally reprints this article, how will the court calculate the actual losses caused to us? This is quite difficult. This is also the reason why many authors are unwilling to pursue legal proceedings. Because it is likely to waste a lot of time, but the actual compensation you can get is not worth the loss.

It should be said that when the evidence is conclusive, the victor in this kind of infringement lawsuit is usually the rights holder. However, the results of safeguarding rights through legal procedures cannot serve as a deterrent to infringers. If the infringer is a famous person or a powerful company, the damage to reputation and compensation for economic benefits will not be the same.

How to protect your rights

So if you find that someone else has infringed on your work, what actions can you take?

First of all, you can contact the infringer and ask them to stop infringement, remove the infringing plagiarized text, or reprint it according to your reprint request. You should clearly inform the other party of the original source of your work and give the other party a time limit. If the infringer does not take action within the time limit given, you will take further action.

If the infringer ignores it within a given period of time, you can file a complaint with the domain name registrar and hosting provider of the infringer's website. All responsible domain name service providers and hosting service providers promise not to allow illegal content to be placed on their hosts, including illegally reproduced and plagiarized content.

In the complaint letter, you should include the following: the copyright owner’s signature, documents that can prove the copyright owner’s identity, the original source of the work, and the work that was plagiarized or illegally reproduced. Where is the content complained of, and the contact information of the complainant or original author, including address, phone number, email, etc.

The copyright owner should state that the complained of illegal reproduction or plagiarism does not have the permission of the copyright owner and does not fall within the scope of fair use. The complainant or original author should also state that the contents of the complaint are true.

Here we make a statement: Zhongxin Network Technology strictly abides by copyright protection laws. If a customer is complained about illegally reprinting or plagiarizing other copyright-protected content, as long as the complaint is confirmed to be true, we will immediately stop the infringer account. The remaining account balance will not be refunded, and we reserve the right to take further legal action.

Third, you can also complain to the search engine company about infringing content. If the infringing website has Google Adsense ads, such complaints will be more effective. From what we know, serious search engines such as Google take such complaints seriously. As long as the evidence is conclusive, the infringing party's advertising account will usually be suspended, and its website content will most likely be removed from the search engine database.

The last step, of course, is to take legal action by issuing a lawyer's letter and filing a lawsuit against the infringer.