Film Copyright Protection of Film Copyright

For a long time in the past, when it comes to the piracy of film copyright, most people will think of the piracy of audio-visual products. Nowadays, the emergence of new technology and the progress of digital and network technology not only promote the continuous progress of film art, but also make the film dissemination mode, that is, the film piracy mode, increasingly diversified.

"At first, we contacted a lot of pirated VCD and DVD movies, but the situation improved because we did a lot of anti-piracy work in the early stage of film screening. At present, we are facing the severe challenge of piracy in the later stage of film screening. " Han Xiaoli, general manager of China Film Group, said that network infringement, especially pirated broadcast on TV stations, is very serious.

China has become the largest market for Internet users. Among all kinds of websites, there are countless websites that provide online watching and downloading movies. According to a survey of 30 websites providing such services by China Film Copyright Protection Association, each website provides an average of 1634.7 downloaded movies, of which 1444.6 domestic movies are provided for download, accounting for 8.84% of the total, and these movies and TV programs are basically not authorized by the right holders. Su, deputy director of the Copyright Department of the Copyright Administration Department of the National Copyright Administration, said that as of February 3, 2005, local copyright departments, with the strong cooperation of local public security and telecommunications authorities, had investigated and dealt with 172 cases of network infringement, of which 149 cases had all been closed. Copyright law enforcement officers investigated and obtained evidence from 173 website and 405 servers involved, closed 76 websites with "three noes" according to law, confiscated 39 servers dedicated to infringement and piracy, confiscated 39,000 yuan of illegal income, ordered 137 website to delete infringing content, imposed a fine of * * * 789,000 yuan on 29 infringing websites and transferred them to judicial suspects. In addition to network infringement, the infringement and piracy of movies by TV stations are also extremely serious. According to the monitoring and broadcasting of several provincial non-TV channels and some city TV channels by China Film Copyright Protection Association in the first half of this year, the number of pirated movies is quite amazing, reaching hundreds; Moreover, from the perspective of film types, many films are recently released works with good market benefits and novel content.

Yu Meng, director of the Legal Department, said that according to the known situation, non-satellite TV stations in provinces and cities above the provincial capital and cities under separate state planning should broadcast 1.200 to 1.500 films belonging to members of China Film Copyright Protection Association, or more. According to the compensation standard of 50,000 yuan for the infringing broadcast of the movie Out of Amazon by China Education TV Station, the loss caused to film copyright owners by pirated broadcast of film works by TV stations will reach 60 million yuan to 75 million yuan every year.

In addition, Zhu Yongde, chairman of China Film Copyright Protection Association, said that all kinds of VCD video-on-demand systems for movies set up in long-distance buses, planes, ships, hotels, restaurants and other places without permission are also violations of film copyright. "In the past two years, we have recovered economic losses of more than 2 million yuan through litigation. But we deeply feel that it is too much for us to protect our rights through a department, a unit, especially a single filmmaker. When a movie is released, 500 copies will be made, and one will be in charge of one, and 500 copies will be distributed. After the film is released, people will be sent to all parts of the country to record the evidence of infringement with video recorders, and then litigation will be conducted through legal channels. " Han Xiaoli said helplessly, it is really overwhelming.

Fei Anling, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law, said that the infringement problem can be solved by legal means. However, this conflict of interest is still intensifying after the implementation of the copyright law for more than 20 years. This shows that the law is not omnipotent, and it is impossible to expect all problems to be solved through the law.

More importantly, even through judicial settlement, film rights holders may not be able to recover losses. A few years ago, China Film Producers Association, entrusted by Beijing Film, Shanghai Film, Chang Ying and other 10 filmmakers, sued Tiandu Agency Center and Tianjin TEDA Audio and Video Distribution Company for privately infringing their film copyright. The court finally fined 10 Cinema10.2 million yuan, equivalent to 50,000 yuan per film. However, including evidence collection fees, attorney fees and legal fees, the producer can't make ends meet.

In June, 2005, 165438+ 10, China Copyright Protection Association initiated the first lawsuit of rights protection, which also encountered the same embarrassment. The film "On Taihang Mountain" of Bayi Film Studio was pirated by a TV station in Hunan, and the compensation obtained from it barely maintained all expenses. A person in charge of Bayi Film Studio said that this was just a "discussion".

Although the relevant laws stipulate that "who shall bear the necessary expenses paid by the film copyright owner in the right relief", this part is largely left to the court for discretion. Theoretically, the court must demand compensation from the injurer and compensate the expenses for the right relief, but the local protectionism in some areas makes this provision meaningless in practice. Piracy lawsuits "are not worth the loss", which directly leads to many rights holders' unwillingness and interest to take up legal weapons to defend their rights.

In addition, Chen Guoxing, a famous director and vice president of the China Film Directors Association, said that he once happened to see a TV station broadcast a feature film introducing the history of China's atomic bomb, many of which were edited from his film Out of the Sky. Li Qiankuan, a famous director and president of China Film Foundation, also said that a large-scale feature film "Chongqing Negotiation" released by a TV station used a lot of shots in his film. His directorial work "founding ceremony" was even made into an information piece. However, there is no clear legal provision for this kind of disguised infringement-using a large number of film works in the form of special topics. "In fact, the biggest difficulty facing China's film copyright protection is how to change the public's concept." Zhu Yongde said with great emotion that although the government attaches great importance to the copyright protection of movies, some relevant laws and regulations are constantly improving; However, due to the fact that most people have not realized the harm of piracy, and even some rights holders have a weak awareness of rights protection, coupled with some local protectionism, the road to rights protection has encountered many difficulties.

This is clearly reflected in the case that China Education Television was accused of infringing the right to broadcast the film Out of Amazon, which was concluded by the Haidian District People's Court in Beijing in late July. On September 10, 2005, China Education Television broadcasted the film in the weekend movie section of one of its programs without the permission of the program center of the film channel. China Education Television believes that its broadcasting behavior is an educational and teaching use behavior outside the classroom and should be used reasonably. The court held that "Out of Amazon" really belongs to the patriotic education film recommended by the relevant departments, but this does not mean that any act of playing the recommended film is for public welfare purposes. As far as this case is concerned, China Education Television inserted many advertisements in the process of broadcasting the film, which obviously has nothing to do with public interests, and its broadcasting behavior has commercial purposes.

However, Fei Anling pointed out that many people like to justify "not for profit" and think that there is no infringement. In fact, they are all guilty. Our country's law does not require that the tort is for profit and infringes on the material property of others, and it does not need to be for profit to constitute infringement. Whether it is for profit or not, as long as it meets the constitutive requirements of tort law and is not within the scope of special protection given by law, then this kind of tort is established.

In addition to changing people's ideas and understanding, people in the film industry said that "there are more administrative penalties, less civil compensation and less criminal attacks", and the lack of punishment for piracy is also a difficult problem for copyright protection. Wei, deputy director of the Office of the National Intellectual Property Protection Working Group, bluntly pointed out: "I think the key is that there is no punitive clause and the punishment is too light. The high cost of safeguarding rights and the low cost of infringement are the important reasons why the law fails to protect the rights of obligees. According to the law, if the amount of infringement cannot be proved, the amount of compensation cannot exceed 500,000 yuan. However, a film often loses much more in infringement. A copy may lose millions or even tens of millions of yuan at the box office. "

"To protect the copyright of the film, the right holder must first work together with Qi Xin to twist into a rope." An industry insider said, for example, the right of information network communication is an important right explicitly recognized by the right holder in the revised copyright law, but it is difficult for a single right holder to implement and realize this right. Therefore, film copyright owners need to rely on certain institutions and copyright collective management organizations to realize collectively.