Aug 3, 2020 | 2020 Special Task Force on Cracking down Online Copyright Infringement and Piracy in China

2020 Special Task Force on Cracking down Online Copyright Infringement and Piracy in China

In June 2020, the Four administrative bodies of China, namely, the National Copyright Administration, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, and the State Internet Information Office have jointly launched a special task force, with code name “Sword Network 2020”, to combat online infringement and piracy . This effort signals the 16th nationwide ongoing special campaign against online infringement and piracy action in China.

This special task force was carried out from June to October 2020, focusing on the new situations and new problems being faced by online copyright infringement, focusing on the 5 major areas: First, carry out special task force on audiovisual works copyright, in-depth development of special protection of cinema network copyrights, and severely crack down infringement and piracy in the field of short videos, severely crack down on the spread of infringement and pirated works through streaming media software and hardware; Second, carry out special task force on e-commerce platform copyright, strengthen copyright supervision of large e-commerce platforms, and severely crack down on online store sales of pirated books , audio-visual products, electronic publications, databases and pirated network links and storage of pirated works’ online disk account passwords, etc., strictly crack down on the use of pirated pictures, music, and videos in the design and operation of online stores; Third, launch special social platform for copyright projects, increase copyright protection of news works, further regulate the order of copyright dissemination in the picture market, and close down a number of maliciously infringing social platform accounts; Fourth, carry out special task force on online copyright education, increase copyright protection of the “learning power” learning platform, and vigorously crack down on the chaos of infringement and piracy in online education and training, cut off the gray industry chain of piracy online courses; Fifth, consolidate the results of copyright governance in key areas, severely crack down on infringement and piracy such as online game private servers, plug-ins, and promote the improvement of the online music copyright authorization system and strengthen the copyright supervision of large-scale knowledge sharing platforms, continue to consolidate the results of work in the fields of online literature, animation, online disks, application markets, and online advertising alliances.

The relevant person in charge of the National Copyright Administration stated that this special task force will highlight the investigation and handling of cases, further increase the penalties for online infringement and piracy cases, and strictly investigate and deal with infringement and piracy elements with strong attitude from the public and great social harm in accordance with the laws. Netizens are welcome to actively complain and report, and provide clues to the suspected infringement and piracy cases.

Sword Network 2020 has witnessed that the Chinese authorities have been making tremendous efforts in strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights in China.