A User-Unfriendly Draft: 3rd Revision of the Chinese Copyright Law

Chinese Copyright Law is going to be revised for the third time. A Draft of the 3rd Revision was released for public consultation. As a critical reading of the Draft, the paper points out a variety of defects of the Draft, including restricting fair use, unreasonably expanding the scope of copyright and neighbouring rights, strengthening copyright enforcement and collective management, and stretching legal protection for technological measures and right management information. Although China has enacted the national strategy of indigenous intellectual property and the 3rd Revision is not under imminent trade pressure, the Draft fails to correct the misconceptions, such as “the more the better” (more copyright protection and enforcement, the better economic growth and social development), “one size fits all” and “modelling on US law” and misses the opportunities to revamp its Copyright Law in the new century.