I covered this topic during my recent webinar for the China-Britain Business Council
about China Film Intellectual Property. Here is a summary of
the main points I made.
China joined WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization)
in 1980 and it introduced its first copyright law in 1990. China
adopted modern intellectual property laws as a condition of joining
the WTO (the World Trade Organization) in 2001.
The amendments of 2001 were the first round of modernization of
China's copyright law. A second round came into force in 2010.
A bill representing a third round of amendments is now at an
advanced stage. Incidentally, one of the biggest issues currently
being debated is whether China should introduce a terrestrial
public performance right for sound recordings. China is often
criticized by the US for its copyright laws but China and the US
have more in common than you might have thought when it comes to
copyright — they are both among a small number of
