Starting January 1, 2011, the China Film Copyright Association (CFCA) will charge money for the use of film works in internet cafés, on airplanes, ships and in buses and trains. They will start with eight municipalities and provinces, including Beijing, Shanghai and Jiangsu. Read the China Daily article here.
October 14, 2010, the National Copyright Administration issued two regulations:
- Films of Copyright Collective Management Fee Charged to Use the Standard’
- Collective Management of Copyright Works with the Transfer Fee to Pay Approach.
One could expect it, because the CFCA already submitted a Standard of User Charges for Copyright Collective Management of Film Works, see here. Alice Xin Liu writes that “[t]he Dongguan Times went with a really innovative design, issuing a fake letter from the China Film Copyright Association.” Read her interesting story at the always excellent Danwei.org, here.
Then Xinhua runs a story entitled: ‘China’s New Film Royalty Rule Stirs Debate‘, and quoting one angry internet cafe owner in Chongqing municipality and another in Beijing.
Bad for foreign films, bad for Chinese films
IP Dragon is concerned that the owners of internet cafés and the operators of planes, trains, ships and buses are not charged for showing foreign films. This is not only discriminatory to foreign film makers, and in violation of international treaties, but it will hurt the fledgling Chinese film industry. There is not really fair competition if you have to pay for Chinese films and foreign pirated films you can use for free. The National Copyright Administration of China has already announced that this will not change in the near future. Maybe Hollywood, Bollywood and the European filmindustry can change their opinion.
UPDATE 2 November 2010
The China Film Copyright Association has invited foreign film copyright holders to cooperate on the issues of royalties and piracy. Read Clifford Coonan’s article for Variety here.
