Beijing court sees more copyright disputes settled

Beijing courts have settled a large number of copyright disputes brought by publishing houses since entering the digital age, striving to provide strong legal protection for high-quality development of traditional Chinese cultures, an official document said.

Since 2020, the capital's courts have heard 8,401 intellectual property disputes involving public cultural services, of which, 8,089 have been concluded, according to data released by the Beijing High People's Court in a White Paper on Monday.

Among the concluded cases, 6,992 were copyright cases brought by publishing houses, accounting for 86 percent of the total, said the paper concerning the digital construction of public services by the rule of law.

It added that the remaining cases included copyright lawsuits initiated by museums and libraries, as well as those on trademark infringement and unfair competition.

The wide application of new technologies has not only brought new cultural products, such as museum VR panoramic videos, digital collections and virtual digital figures, "but also given birth to new types of IP disputes in the cultural field, bringing a big challenge for judges," Ren Xuefeng, vice-president of the high court, said while introducing the paper to the public.

For the protection of IP rights related to the digitalization of public cultural services, he emphasized that both government departments and judicial authorities should strengthen their efforts, so as to form a joint force to advance the development of the industry.

Considering the lack of protection for data of cultural relics, as well as the increasingly big risks of IP infringement in the digitalization of library documents, the paper also suggested judges do more research on the issues.