The 2016 China Online Copyrights Protection Conference in Beijing, April 26, 2016.[Photo/Chinanews.com]

The 2016 China Online Copyrights Protection Conference was held in Beijing on April 26.

"Safeguarding online literature copyrights is still our important mission in 2016," said Ci Ke, director of the Administration Department of China's National Copyright Administration (NCAC).

Despite being a newcomer to intellectual property protection (IPR), China has geared up to strengthen the protection of online music and literature copyrights, step by step.

On June 8, 2015, NCAC issued the Notice for Online Music Providers on the Shutdown of Unauthorized Music Distribution Service to tackle pirated online music.

According to NCAC Deputy Director Yan Xiaohong, China will adopt more effective measures to protect the music industry. And the era of free downloading and sharing music on the Internet will be over.

Copyright infringement of online literature

As to online literature, its copyright protection is structured in the same way.

In light of a report about China's 2015 online literature copyright protection, copyright infringement cost at least 10 billion yuan in losses.

An officer from iResearch, Lu Weina, noted that online forums and post bars are the two places where most copyright piracy appears.

Online writer Angry Banana has been in a fight for the copyright of his novel, Zhui Xu, at Baidu Post Bars since 2011. In a recent case concerning the infringement of a new chapter of the novel in a post bar called "Zhui Xu dt", Baidu's official Weibo issued a notice and noted that Baidu would clear all pirated content from the novel in the post bar within 12 hours on April 25.

The popular comic strip, The Friendship Boat Capsizes Easily, is a recent victim of the copyright pirates. Its creator, Nandongni, uses two little penguins sitting on the two sides of a boat to articulate about the pressures and social faux pas in daily life. With its popularity on the Internet, many versions of these two penguins soon appeared and were forwarded on WeChat Moments and Weibo.

Nandongni posted Breakdown, a Notice on Sina Weibo on April 19, listing many versions of his comic made by others, expressing his thanks to those who loved his comic and emphasizing the strip's copyright.

"I would be happy if someone used my comic and also would like to pay for that," Nandongni said.

How to protect copyrights

"It's unfair to ignore copyrights, because online writers have paid so much energy and time on their creations," said Jiang Bo, general manager of Tencent's Law Department.

He said the awareness of copyright protection should be strengthened on the social level, to let more people know the importance of intellectual property protection.

Meanwhile, the government, writers, enterprises and media should pay more attention to safeguarding copyrights.

Secretary-General of the China Written Works Copyright Society Zhang Hongbo noted many law cases concerning book copyright disputes emerging in recent years.

"The priority is to improve the related laws and rules to meet the need of intellectual property protection. And the copyright owner should also have the awareness to protect their rights," Zhang said.