Copyright protection of the media: history, status, and dilemma

Author: Zou Yutong (Ph.D. School of Guanghua Law College of Zhejiang University)

Source: "Young Reporter", No. 15, 2022

Different from the traditional paper media that has the "Passingman" system, the emergence of online social platforms that can publish content that users register to release content has formed a new way of communication, announcing the advent of the media era. The so -called self -media, academic definitions are the connection between a common people through digital technology and global knowledge system to provide and share their true views and their own news. In short, in the media era, anyone can be the creator of the content of the content. In the field of legal fields, this change inevitably brings new problems, that is, how should personal copyright be protected in the scenario where everyone is a creator?

The historical evolution of the copyright of the media's copyright: from rights disputes to knowledge payment

(1) Rights and dispute stages

As a new thing from the media, its work form is huge different from traditional books and paper media. In the early days of the development of the media, there were problems such as the type of work that could not be classified by the type of work, and it was difficult to identify the originality of the work. At the same time, the release of self -media works takes the media platform as the carrier, and the survival and dissemination of the works depends on the self -media platform. Some platforms directly stipulate the "Overlord Terms" in the user agreement, and upload the author to the platform's self -media works to copy, modify, publish, and distribute the rights of the platform directly. At this stage, the existence of self -media copyrights is still controversial in the theoretical world, and the protection of self -media copyrights cannot be talked about in practice.

(2) The stage of confirmation protection

With the rapid development of the Internet culture industry including the media, the provisions of the "Supreme Court on the Application of Laws on Civil Disputes on Civil Disputes on the Communication Network Communication Rights" (2012) and the "Regulations on Protection of Information Network Communication Rights" 2013 Edition) The introduction of laws and regulations and judicial interpretations represented by representatives, so that the concept of copyright and artistic works such as the original work of self -media should gradually become the mainstream. In 2012, Netease issued a new user agreement on its own media platforms such as NetEase LOFTER, Netease Photography and NetEase Blog on its own. The agreement was the first to be the creators of the copyright of the works of users who uploaded (publishing) works. Since then, other self -media platforms have imitated the user agreement: self -media authors rather than self -media platforms enjoy copyright (that is, "who created, who has"), and gradually became the industry consensus. At this stage, the copyright protection of the media has been strengthened.

(3) Knowledge paid stage

In 2015, the main science shell network launched its product "is underway". Users can consult the user to settle in the user in the form of a private chat. Subsequently, the "Luo Ji Thinking" team launched a paid subscription app to "get". In 2016, "Zhihu" launched two knowledge payment applications: "Damuration" and "Zhihu Live". According to the clicks/reading volume, you can get the corresponding advertising flow income, and the media officially enters the era of knowledge paid.

The emergence of knowledge payment provides a variety of content monetization channels for self -media creators, giving self -media copyrights with considerable economic value. However, the drive of economic interests will also lead to a sharp increase in the possibility of infringement from media works. In the recent "Jianwang 2021" operation, the regulatory authorities investigated and handled 445 cyber infringement cases, closed 245 infringing pirated websites (APPs), and disposed of 618,300 links to delete the infringement.

The current status of self -media copyright: Take the "Knowledge" platform as an example

"Zhihu" is one of the most popular Q & A self -media platforms. The "Zhihu" platform builds a community ecology through a personalized question and answer social model, adopts the form of the community, and uses user nodes to produce and share high -quality Q & A content. The problem, strive to build a high -quality Q & A community and a more valuable interpersonal relationship network. Here, unlike other self -media platforms that pursue information timeliness, the "Zhihu" platform pays more attention to the quality of the question and answer content. To ensure the output of high -quality content, the importance of the author (user) copyright protection is obvious. At the same time, as mentioned earlier, "Zhihu" is also one of the self -media platforms that have entered the field of knowledge earlier. Therefore, "Zhihu" has certain representativeness and research on the protection of self -media copyrights. At present, the guarantee of the "Zhihu" platform for copyright is reflected in the agreement and technical protection.

(1) The "Zhihu" user agreement on the protection of self -media copyright protection

For different types of users, "Zhihu" formulates different user agreements: "Zhihu" Agreement (Draft) "for ordinary users," Zhihu Video User Agreement (Trial) "for video users," User Agreement -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhi Zhi -Zhizhi "Live" is for Live users. The "Zhihu" Agreement (Draft) "is very clear about the protection of the copyright of the self -media authors. The agreement indicates that all the original content published on the "Zhihu" platform, copyright is owned by the user himself. In addition, "Zhihu" also stipulates that the original content is provided in the agreement, and the user can authorize the third party to use it in any way without the consent of the platform. The content of this regulation is still rare in the current media platform: there are no similar terms on the user protocols of platforms such as Weibo, WeChat public account. "Zhihu Video User Agreement (Trial)" and "User Agreement -Zhihu Live" also clearly stipulates that the author ownership of all original content published by the author and the platform on the platform is owned by the speaker himself, but in these two types of protocols It is not stated that the user can authorize the third party to use the content published in any way. In terms of infringement and rights, the three types of agreements also stipulate that when users are infringed, "Zhihu" will have the right to hold the infringer responsibility independently on the infringement. For example, "Zhihu" in 2016 in the People's Court of Haidian District, on the grounds of infringing the right to spread the information network, and sued the Weibo account "Knowing the Great God" (the current account is called "Great God") The case was sentenced in November 2019, and the plaintiff "Zhihu" won the lawsuit.

While confirming the right, the "Zhihu" agreement (draft) also restricts the copyright of the self -media authors. The agreement stipulates that the copyright edited by multi -person editors will be attributed to Zhihu. For the original content of the self -media authors enjoying copyright, "Zhihu" also enjoys a free non -independent license right to use. Similar regulations also appear in "User Agreement -Zhihu Live" and "Zhihu Video User Agreement (Trial)".

(2) The technical protection of the "Zhihu" platform for self -media copyright

While improving the formulation of user agreements, the "Zhihu" platform has also adopted a series of measures for the protection of self -media copyright protection in the technology field. In terms of confirmation, the "Zhihu" platform promises to register the content of the content issued by the user's release at DCI (National Copyright Protection Center). At the level of authorization, the "Zhihu" platform has given users to prohibit reprints, allows payment reprints, and allows specifications to reprint three options. Once the user has chosen to prohibit reprints, others can no longer achieve infringement plagiarism by simply replication and paste. If the user chooses to allow payment to reprint, others must pay the corresponding price to get the author's permission before they can be reprinted. Specification reprint means that the "Zhihu" platform will automatically add the original author's account number and original link source in the reprinted article.

In addition, the "Zhihu" platform will automatically play the name watermark of the author's account in the original picture. In response to the original video content in the media, the "Zhihu" platform has adopted technical measures such as anti -piracy and anti -theft chains, and adds and sets the right to manage electronic information. Add the ending of the author's account information. For the content of "Zhihu", the platform stipulates that only paying members can view the content materials, and only listen online, and the content cannot be downloaded to personal computers.

At the level of rights protection, "Zhihu" is based on the situation of suspected infringement of its own platform content, and a report channel on the platform is set up. Users can be completed by clicking on the reporting column of the infringement content. operate. In response to the WeChat public account cross -platform content infringement, "Zhihu" cooperated with WeChat to launch the "WeChat public account infringement complaint" function.

Empirical participation in the predicament of self -media copyright protection

As mentioned above, the "Zhihu" platform seems to be quite protected by the copyright of the self -media authors, and the actual situation is rare research and reporting. To this end, the author conducted participation empirical research. The author officially operated in early 2018 in the self -media account of "Zhihu". As of January 2022, the content issued by the account was viewed 140 million times, and more than 16 million praises and 220,000 collections have become the platform. It has become a platform. It has become a platform. One of the heads of the first self -media account for operation. After nearly 4 years of operation, the author has a closer understanding of the protection of the media's copyright. The "Zhihu" platform's guarantee at the agreement and technical level does have a certain effect. However, in reality, the protection of self -media copyright protection is still in trouble.

(1) There are many infringement accounts, and the platform review efficiency is low

In the media era, any registered user can become creators. The infringement of self -media works also shows the characteristics of plagiarism. In the process of self -media operations, the author found that after the number of high -quality self -media works written by personal accounts has increased, it is easily plagiarized by many unknown self -media accounts. There are many such self -media accounts, and infringement information is released all the time. In the face of these infringement accounts, personal media accounts usually only protect their rights by reporting to the platform. However, the passive relief model such as "reporting infringement content -platform review and deletion" is very limited when facing extremely low cost infringement behaviors. In actual operation, after the platform operator checks the content of the report and deletes the content of plagiarism in accordance with the "Notice -Delete" rules, most of the associated plagiarism accounts will release new plagiarism content again. If the platform takes measures to ban a plagiarism account, the account operator can also register a new account to continue to plagiarize the high -quality content to obtain traffic returns. (2) Cross -platform cross -border plagiarism and infringement are serious

The original content of high -quality self -media has been plagiarized by cross -platform plagiarism. For example, the question and answer content of "Zhihu" is published by Weibo users, WeChat public accounts, and even some portal operators. In response to this issue, the "Zhihu" platform specifically launched prohibited reprint measures, which technically blocked other users to directly copy the original content, and innovatively established a cross -platform management mechanism with WeChat public account. However, in the actual operation, after the author sets the personal Q & A content to the prohibited reprint mode, it is still subject to cross -platform plagiarism in a screenshot, screen recording, etc., and plagiarism usually selects on Weibo, Baijia account and other platforms. In order to avoid the joint management of "Zhihu" and WeChat public account platform. What's more, the author has discovered on foreign websites such as YouTube, Twitter, and North American Chinese E network that some foreign media accounts have plagiarized the author's videos, text and other works without authorization without the permission of the author, and by inserting it by inserting insertion Advertising to get traffic returns. Due to different countries and different countries, the identification of the infringement behavior of original works is not uniform. At present, the plagiarism of such cross -platform and even cross -border plagiarism is difficult to have effective response.

(3) The author's willingness to defend the rights to protect the rights and protects low rights and protects low rights.

The right to defend the rights of the original authors is generally two types of platform complaints and offline lawsuits. After complaining to the platform to defend rights, the platform operation review suspected of infringing copyright. In this way, even if the author's rights are successful, they usually only get the account credit enhancement reward given by the platform in addition to the deletion of infringement content (such as the "salt value" of the "Zhihu" platform), and there is no compensation for economic interests. Although offline judicial proceedings can require the infringement to conduct civil compensation under the premise of winning the lawsuit, the cost of comprehensive litigation preparation time, reasonable expenses, and the amount of compensation that may be obtained. state. For example, the case mentioned in the previous article "Knowing the Platform Prosecution of Weibo Number God", the case "Zhihu" platform was prosecuted in 2016 to 2019, and after three years, although the final victory, "Zhihu Zhihu, but" Zhihu Zhihu "The platform also obtained only more than 37,000 yuan, including reasonable expenses. In the case of requiring a lot of time and energy to defend rights, but the overall benefits are so low, it is obviously difficult for the original authors to be in the face of infringement.

(4) "Big V" user rights protection is more difficult

Self -media operators have more attention to obtain wider content and accounts, and they usually certify personal information such as academic qualifications, occupations, and experience on their self -media platforms. In the self -media platform, certification is Verify, so certified operators with a large number of fans will be called "big V". Because the personal information is public on the homepage, and the content of many self -media works published, there are inevitably the content of the real people appearing or punching locations, so most of the "big V" offline real information is not difficult to obtain. In this context, a considerable part of the "big V" is out of concerns that he has been retaliated with defamation and offline harassment. Most of the actions that violate copyrights are more tendency to be more negatively treated with the Ming Zhe to protect himself. The author once contacted the feedback platform to deal with the marketing account of a long -term illegal reprinting author content. As a result, the operator of the marketing number was insulted to the author privately by registering the trumpet, and threatened the author's offline unit. The information will be harassing and slander by submitting the principal's mailbox. This type of slander case is a self -prosecution case and requires the rights protection party to collect evidence to initiate a lawsuit. In view of the anonymity of the network, the cost of obtaining evidence for such cases is difficult and difficult. As a result, in the face of a more difficult environment for rights protection and the possibility of more serious infringement, most "big V" can only choose to be peaceful.

In the face of the above dilemma, multi -party subjects are urgently needed to build a system governance mechanism. At the judicial level, the compensation amount of copyright disputes can be further standardized, the litigation process is convenient to optimize the litigation process, and the initial enthusiasm for rights protection of the original authors.

At the self -media platform itself, the platform should change the passive management model of "user report infringement -platform review and deletion" in the past, increase the review of the content release end, and destroy the plagiarism and infringement in the bud state. Faced with the serious cross -border plagiarism, it is necessary to establish a third -party network rights protection agency that can confirm the original works across the platform.

At the author's level, the authors of the media should establish awareness of rights protection and fully understand the content of the copyright agreement between the platform and the user. Under the same conditions, you can choose to settle in a relatively greater platform for the protection of your copyright.It is believed that through the participation of multi -party subjects and the construction of related protection measures, the protection of media copyrights will be further strengthened in the future, and the development of the media industry will be more prosperous.[This article is a phased achievement of international cooperation research and exchanges (number: 2020015) for doctoral students from Zhejiang University in Zhejiang University in 2020]

Reference format for this article:

Zou Yutong. Copyright protection of the media: history, status, and difficulties-the perspective of the "Zhihu" respondent [J]. Young reporter, 2022 (15): 88-90.

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