With short-video apps gaining popularity the weakness of copyright protection for original content has become more critical.
Up to 92.9% of the domestic online short-video content infringed copyright, according to a recent report by 12426 Copyright Monitoring Center, the former National Copyright Administration of the People's Republic of China.
The center said short videos grew quickly as apps incorporated e-commerce marketing into video content in recent years.
The 2019 revenue of the online short video market in China was 130 billion yuan, according to Statista.
Original Versus Reproduction
The center between January 2019 and October 2020 monitored more than 10 million short videos created by nearly 100,000 video-makers.
The authority tracked original short-video content, and discovered 30.09 million short videos reedited the content of the originals or were directly reproduced without legal permits. The total internet viewing of illegal short videos reached 2.72 trillion.
The China 2018 film "Dying To Survive" had 25,929 infringing links, according to the center.
The monitored videos comprise two kinds - portrait-mode short videos under 60-seconds and landscape-mode videos under 20 minutes.
Screening on three sources - news, comprehensive video streaming and short-video apps - infringed cosmetics and food videos to reedited videos of movie summaries and sporting events.
FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 had 108,355 infringing links, according to the center.
It called for strengthened regulation and said China's regulations and standards in the short video sector were lagging behind.
Short-Video, Big Money
Copyright infringement litigation became a concern after the use of a short video in an advertisement in April 2019 that went on to receive the highest compensation to date.
A photographer Liu Muyu made a two-minute video of a new model car at a skiing spot in Chongli, Hebei province. Liu sued renowned video advertisement company, Shanghai Yitiao Network Technology Co., Ltd., for broadcasting the video for commercial usage without his permission or crediting him.
The viewership of Liu's video reached more than 400,000 hits on Yitiao's platform by the time Liu obtained evidence for the lawsuit.
Though Yitiao said the video was provided by a "third party" and the company didn't know it was Liu's work. The Haidian District People's Court of Beijing required Yitiao to compensate Liu 500,000 yuan.
The court certified the originality and commercial value of Liu's video and said Yitiao had clearly made money based on his work and didn't remove the online infringed content upon request.
More Regulation Coming
As of June there were 901 million internet users in China - the most in the world followed by India and the U.S. About 15.2% are short-video viewers - nearly double the 7.9% of internet users who watch long-video content, such as online streaming movies, TV series and variety shows, according to a report by China Net-casting Services Association.
The fast growing short-video market has urged lawmakers to make regulatory moves.
In November a draft amendment to China's copyright law was submitted to the legislature for a third review. The revision raised limits on statutory damage from 500,000 yuan ($75,500) to 5 million yuan.
Legal experts told CGTN that the key to copyright protection is "to make sure the penalty is higher than the gains from violations."
China's copyright law was first enacted in 1991 and amended in 2001 and 2020. The third draft stipulates reproductions with infringements should be destroyed.
