Who is the picture?"Watermark" is not counted!

In recent years, with the exposure of the "based on its own" incident by the photo, the commercial rights protection model of the picture platform has attracted more and more attention.

The reporter learned from the Guangzhou Copyright Protection Center that the picture platform generally uses a certain economic benefits as the defendant. The rate of winning has a high winning rate. Objectively, the creator's rights and interests have been maintained, the cost of copyright infringement of the enterprise has been increased, and the cost of copyright infringement of the enterprise has been promoted. Practitioners and even the public's awareness of public copyright. However, on the other hand, in order to reduce the cost of rights protection, the picture platform tends to reduce the authorization price and the income of rights protection, and occupy the public ownership or open authorization works as their own sales, "fishing for power", etc. Not conducive to cultivating a good creative ecological environment.

Peng Xinqian, an expert in the Copyright Bureau of the Copyright Bureau of Guangzhou and an associate professor at the School of Law of Guangzhou University, said that photos of copyright disputes involve several levels of legal issues. First of all, whether the photo itself can constitute a copyright -owner, that is, the work, which is the prerequisite for the existence of copyright; second, if the work is constituted, who is the original author; third, what facts or legal relationship between the website and the author can be Make it a copyright owner.

Judicial case: Can't just determine the ownership of the picture involved in the watermark

Many people think that "watermark" is a sign of the ownership of a picture, but the judicial case in recent years is not the case. The reporter learned from the Guangzhou Copyright Protection Center that among the 50 typical intellectual property cases issued by the Supreme People's Court in 2021, there are judgments clearly that the ownership of the pictures involved in the case cannot be determined by the watermark. In this regard, Peng Xinqian's explanation is that the watermark of the picture platform can be automatically generated by the system, similar to a self -declaration. According to Article 12 of the Copyright Law, "Nature, legal person or illegal organization signed on the work as the author, and there are corresponding rights on the work, except for the opposite proof."

It can be seen that if there are other evidence to prove the ownership of the work, the watermark cannot be used as the only evidence of identifying the copyright owner of the work.

In addition to the picture platform, today, with the continuous improvement of people's awareness of rights and the rapid development of Internet technology, there are also some "platform" commercial rights protection in the field of music. These are worthy of our attention. Professor Peng Xinqian said that on the one hand, the right to defend the rights protection of the picture platform can smoothly realize the copyright interests of the copyright owner and enhance the awareness of the intellectual property protection of the whole society; on the other hand question. "From the perspective of institutional perspective, the right to abuse or restrict competition from the legislative platform should be regulated on the legislation, and the supervision and management of the picture platform should be strengthened from the administrative law enforcement.

Text/Guangzhou Daily · Xinhua City Reporter: Huang Lan Correspondent: Wei Jiajia Guangzhou Daily · Xinhua City Editor: Zhang Yingwu

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