Korean- American Park Samuel Buyong becomes the first copyright owner for registration in the International Copyright Exchange on March 2. Company photo

China's intellectual property financing is getting a major boost now that the first national copyright exchange center is open for business.

The International Copyright Exchange was set up in Yonghe Plaza in Beijing on Feb 16, serving as the biggest platform for copyright business to improve the copyright market and protect intellectual property rights (IPR) in China.

"As the first national copyright exchange, we will try our best to curb piracy and deepen international cooperation in the IPR field," Yin Zhisong, general manager of the exchange, told China Business Weekly.

The exchange is co-sponsored by Copyright Protection Center of China (CPCC), the Beijing Dongcheng district government and the Beijing Equity Exchange.

Under an agreement with the CPCC at the start of last year, the Dongcheng district government was authorized to build the national copyright exchange. It established an annual cultural creative industry fund of 50 million yuan to back up the development of cultural creative companies.

More than 80 million yuan has been invested in the construction of the exchange, covering a total area of more than 15,000 sq m, Yin said.

As a State-level copyright investment and trade center, the exchange will provide services for the originators, disseminators and users of copyright works. Services include copyright registration and trading, exhibition, legal services, copyright agency and other work.

"In order to serve as a comprehensive stage for copyright owners, the exchange will closely supervise the whole process from the copyright register to the market trading and profit account," Yin told China Business Weekly.

Yin added that besides traditional industries such as publications, radio, film and television, the copyright industry also covers emerging areas such as Internet communications, software and animation.

An online system for copyright registration was launched on March 2, the first domestic online registration platform.

According to statistics from the CPCC, the speed of software copyright registration has grown rapidly. Last year, software registrations reached about 50,000, with a year-on-year increase of more than 90 percent. Revenue from registration is more than 14 million yuan.

Beijing ranked on top of the list with 18,156 cases registered, a year-on-year increase of 109.5 percent.

"The opening of the online registration system will speed up the development of copyright industry to some extent and provide more convenience to customers," Duan Guijian, director of the CPCC, told China Business Weekly.

The CPCC, Copyright Agency of China, Creative Industry Development Agency, China Cartoon Copyright Service, Quacor Online Copyrighted Movie Portal and China Creative Industry Copyright Value Deploitation & Collaboration Alliance will join the exchange soon.

"So far, China still lacks industrial standards, platform, national or international exchange for copyright market. That is the reason why we want to attract as many as copyright service centers to build a comprehensive copyright industrial base for the further development of China's copyright industry," Yin said.

He estimated that in the coming three years such trade will amount to about 1 billion yuan annually.

"Then the next step is to build the exchange to be an international platform," Yin said. "We will try to introduce our brilliant culture to the world and bring in theirs at the same time."

"Opening the international market is just a matter of time, as long as our copyright's market becomes mature," Yin said.

(China Daily 03/16/2009 page11)