Copyright registration
The “Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China” was promulgated on 7th Sep 1990 and adopted since 1st Jun 1991 and amended on 27th Oct 2001. Works that are protected by “Copyright Law” are as follows:(1) Written works
(2) Oral works
(3) Musical, dramatic, quyil, choreographic works
(4) Works of fine art and architecture
(5) Photographic works
(6) Cinematographic works and works created by virtue of an analogous method of film production
(7) Drawings of engineering designs, and product designs, maps, sketches and other graphic works and model works
(8) Computer software
(9) Other works as provided for in laws and administrative regulations
Works of Chinese citizens, legal entities or other organizations, whether published or not, shall enjoy copyright in accordance with this law. Works of foreigners or stateless persons first published in the territory of the People’s Republic of China shall enjoy copyright in accordance with this law. Any work of a foreigner or stateless person which is eligible to enjoy copyright under an agreement concluded between the country to which the foreigner belongs or in which he has habitual residence and China, or under an international treaty to which both countries are party, shall be protected in accordance with this law. The term of protection for copyright in respect of a work of a citizen shall be the lifetime of the author and fifty years after his death, in respect of a work of a juridical person or other organizations, it shall be fifty years after the first publication.
To safeguard the legal rights of the author or other copyright owners and works users, to provide preliminary evidence for resolving copyright disputes and to aid resolution in copyright disputes relating its ownership, the State Copyright Administration instituted “Measures for Trial Implementation of Works Voluntary Registration” in Dec 1994 (computer software registration is implemented according to the “Measures for Computer Software Copyright Registration” ), these “Measures” were implemented on 1st Jan 1995. According to these “Measures”, provincial, autonomous and municipal Copyright Administration should be responsible for the copyright registration of the domestic author; State Copyright Administration should be responsible for the copyright registration of authors from foreign countries, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao districts or other copyright owners. Registration certificate of copyright is the preliminary proof of copyright ownership.
The following documents need to be provided when filing an application for copyright registration:
(1) Voluntary registration application form
(2) Identity certification of the applicant (such as ID card, company business license or registration certificate)
(3) Description of the work
(4) Right undertaking
(5) Right ownership certificate (such as photocopies of the cover or copyrighted pages, part of the manuscript, photos, samples or agreement of copyright ownership etc)
(6) POA
According to the “Measures”, the copyright registration authority should complete the examination and issuance of a certificate within one month after the receipt of the application.