Tag: <span>En</span>

The Story of a Chain Resturant


There is a big chain restaurant company who named itself Eatool. Based in Amilina (a country allowing people eat almost everything except small chicken), Eatool provides delicious meats, including pork, beef and adult chicken. At the same time, it also sells dishware and other stuffs in each of its restaurants.

I.

Few years ago, Eatool opened a new restaurant in Cinet, a country where the king forbid selling pork, as well as chicken.

Personally, Eatool’s boss loves pork, but he knows that selling pork in their Cinet restaurant means shut down the business including the dishware. So they hired Cinet people run the restaurant in Cinet, and restricted themselves from selling pork. At the same time, Eatool sells dishware to Cinetizens.

Chinese BT Websites are Shut down for No License

The leading Chinese websites of BT sharing are shutting down since the beginning of December. BTChina (btchina.net), one of the most famous such sites, is totally shut down. And the rumour that its webmaster has been arrested was once widely spreaded. Yesterday, the webmaster of BTChina left a very brief message at the webpage:

It says:

I have to clarify that … the Radio, Film and Television Administration noticed me BTChina should be closed because the Register Serial Number of the Website (RSNW) is canceled by the Ministry of Industry and information Technology (MIIT). The reason of cancelling the Register Serial Number is BTCHINA has no "License for Dissemination of Audio-Visual Programs through Information Network" (LDAV). I am safe (not arrested). And this proved the online rumours are not reliable, especifically the news.

Cyberpluralism?

I just read Tim Hwang’s essay on the "Berkman School". It is very interesting although I am not a fan of categorizing "schools". He says Berkmanites tend to share the notion that the Internet has specific configuration of features, such as openess, freedom and unfathomably deepness. Hence the fire-walled China’s Internet might not be regarded as "The Internet".

This might be correct when one asks the Berkmanties what is the "ought to" Internet in their minds. While as a Berk-freshman, I’d rather considering what is the truth of the Internet. In my suspicion, the nuance or even major variety of cyber ecology among different countries/cultures/languages/regimes is unavoidable and has actually been formed for years. Considering the 1 billion accounts of QQ, the seperation of the Internet, the isolation of various version of "Internet" seems not merely a trend but also a truth. The problems seems not only "what are the features of the Internet distinct from the pre-internet society", but also "To each pre-internet community, what are the features of the Internet respectively."

Rebecca MacKinnon says there is a "Cyber-tarianism" not uniquely in Chinese Internet sphere. I am waiting for reading that. Nevertheless, I assume there is a trend of Cyber-ANYisms emerging from everywhere. At this stage, shall we take a "cyber-pluralism" into account firstly?

Is GoogleBooks Infringing Copyright in China?

As an Interent application or online service, "Google Books"  may not necessarily be found infringement.

But, Google would be held infringement liability if it really scanned Chinese books without authors’ consents.

First of all, I am talking about Chinese copyright Law. As for whether the same act would be held infringement in the US courts, I don’t know. I don’t know because once the Google Book Settlement is approved by judge, the case will be dismissed without ruling. Even if the settlement were not approved, and even if the case were finally ruled favoring Google, it would merely be a US judgement binding in the US, not necessarily binding in China.  In other words, so long as the case is in Chinese courts’ jurisdiction, Chinese courts shall, according to Chinese copyrigh law, make their onw decisions no matter what the US court’s ruling is. This is a crutial common sence, but I doubt many people may forget it, because for a long time, I see too many comments to Chinese cases according to US laws.

Second, the only relationship between the US court’s ruling and China is: if China thinks a US binding judgment or the approval of settlement violate TRIPS, China may file the case to the WTO.

Third, back to the dispute between Chinese writers and Google, for the forgivable exploitation of the copyrighted works, Chinese copyright law is following the European mode of "limitations to coyright" but not the US concept of "fair use". Therefore, unless a non-liability provision has been provided explicitly, the conduct will be judged infringement once such conduct is regulated in Art. 10 of Chinese Copyright Law as the content of copyright. Until now, China only allows the search engines to store the content in other websites automatically. A conduct of scanning the books, from the first pege to the last, from the first line of each shelf to the last line, constitutes infringement definitely (unless the conductor is public library).

Fourth, Google’s self-limitation of accessing to the full-text of the scanned books is another story. The infringement has been established soon after scanning and storing books in its servers.

Last but not less importantly, this is a legal and positivist analysis. Not a value criticism. I am not saying that Google Books is a good/bad thing hereby. I am also not saying that one should not look at the case and the whole set of the current law critically. On the contrary, the real criticism should be based the fact on which some obvious good thing is hindered by the existing law, or some obvious bad thing is permitted by the existing law.

 

QIP Defeated City Bank in a Patent Case

On 18 May 2009, the Patent Reexamination Council of State Intellectual Property Office of China issued a Decision of Declaring Invalidation of the Patent Right (Decision No. 13362), which declared invalidation of all 28 Claims of Rights in China patent CN 1097799C, which is also a PCT patent (WO97/10559). The patentee is City Bank.

The complaint of invalidation was raised by Professor Chu ZHANG (Chair of Center for IP Research at China U. of Politics & Law, QIP) and Mr Yibiao ZHANG (research fellow at QIP) on 18 Dec. 2008.  The oral procedure was held on 20 April 2009.

This declaration of invalidation breaks through a huge barrier in the market of finance and stock transaction service set by the transnational corporations. Chinese enterprises now can enter into the relevant market and compete with financial giants in a fairer enviroment.

As a non-profit organization, the QIP will continue to hunt the questionable patents owned by the transnational corporations in China, and initiate more actiones publicae populares.

WTO WT/DS363 Information Center 信息中心

本日志为WTO争端解决案件 《DS363 中国 – 关于影响贸易权利的措施和影响若干出版物及娱乐音像产品的分销服务的措施》 的中英文信息汇总。专家组报告(点此)于2009年8月12日公布,WTO上诉机构的最终裁决也已于2009年12月21日作出(点此查看).请收藏本页或订阅法豆获取最新资讯。

This is a collection of the materials on WT/DS363: Measures Affecting Trading Rights and Distribution Services for Certain Publications and Audiovisual Entertainment Products The Panel Report has been published on 12 Aug. 2009.

China appeals the case to the the Appellate Body. The Appellate Body Report was issued on 21 December 2009. please Bookmark this page or subscribe BLawgDog for update.

English Materials:

Rule of Law or Rule of Moral

Rule of Moral or Rule of Law? Contending Passions of China’s Information Control in the New Round of Metropolis Development

This is an outline of my presentation prepared for a Symposium

Lust, Caution is a movie telling a story in Shanghai and Hong Kong in 1940s. I personally like it because it has not only good scenery but also some artistic, as well as sexy episodes. From the law perspective, the interesting thing is: This movie, especially those episodes with nude bodies may not be protected by China’s copyright law because Article 1 of that Law said that it aims to promote the development of ‘spiritual civilization’ but not indecent content, and Article 4 of the Law excludes the copyright protection to ‘illegal works’.

Therefore, if someone uploaded the movie to a website in China, the copyright holder might not eligible to sue the uploader for the copyright infringement. On the other hand, if the copyright holder licensed a website to provide the online watching, both the holder and the website might confront with criminal penalty no matter what warning signal had they placed on the website before the visitor could see the movie. The worse thing is no instruction in China’s law revealing what is obscene or indecent.

Judicial Mediation – A Deprofessionalization?

ON 15 AND 16 APRIL 2009, CityU of HK Law School held an international conference on the mediation. Experts from China, Hong Kong, Australia and Macau presented their latest academic outputs in the meeting.

 

The interesting thing is: Most Chinese experts are focusing on the judicial mediation, which is the mediation coordinated, and in many circumstances initiated, by judges during the litigations. Experts in other jurisdictions, by contrary, tends to discuss the mediation out of the court.