Taipei Palace Museum to sue Beijing museum for copyright infringement

The cover of a painting album published by the Palace Museum in Beijing. [Photo/amazon.cn]

Taipei Palace Museum shall prove Palace Museum in Beijing has infringement act

The Taipei Palace Museum said it took its lawyers' advice and commissioned relative departments to handle the issue based on a cross-Taiwan Strait cooperation agreement on intellectual property protection. After talks with China's National Copyright Administration, the administration said that it was not responsible for the verification of the originality of painting or relic images, and suggested the Taipei side take legal action or establish communication mechanism with the Beijing side to solve the dispute.

Zhang Bingnan, a law expert on intellectual property in Beijing, said the Taipei Palace Museum's allegation belonged to intellectual property infringement civil action, and if specific claims, facts and reasons are provided, and the case is within the Beijing court's jurisdiction, the court will accept the case.

Not only does the Taipei Palace Museum have to prove it owns the copyright of the litigated paintings, it also must prove the Beijing side conducted the infringement act according to the Copyright Law in Chinese mainland.

Zhang also pointed out that the copyright usage regulations of the Taipei Palace Museum, which it used to accuse the Palace Museum in Beijing, are internal regulations not within the law scope of the Chinese mainland's court and neither the content from cross-Taiwan Strait cooperation agreement on intellectual property protection. Therefore, the regulations can't be used as legal basis in determining if Taipei Palace Museum enjoys the copyright.