CHINA Law and Practice Contributed by: Chuanhong Long, Huiqing Wang, Yingying Shen and Fan Li, CCPIT Patent and Trademark Law Office
or authorise others to alter one’s work; and (d) the right of integrity, that is, the right to protect one’s work against distortion and mutilation; • property rights: (a) the right of reproduction, that is, the right to produce one or more copies of the work by means of printing, Xeroxing, rubbing, sound recording, video recording, duplicating, re- shooting, or digitally, etc; (b) the right of distribution, that is, the right to provide the public with original copies or repro- duced copies of works by means of selling or donating; (c) the right of lease, that is, the right to non-gra- tuitously permit others to temporarily use the original or copy of audiovisual works and com- puter software, unless the computer software is not the main object of lease; (d) the right of exhibition, that is, the right to pub- licly display the original copies or reproduced copies of works of fine art and cinematograph- ic works; (e) the right of performance, that is, the right to publicly perform works, and to publicly transmit the performance of works by various means; (f) the right of projection, that is, the right to make works of fine art, photographic works, audio- visual works and the like reappear in public by means of projectors, episcopes and similar technical equipment; (g) the right of broadcasting, that is, the right to publicly broadcast or disseminate works by wired or wireless means, and to disseminate broadcast works to the public by audio ampli- fier or other similar instruments for transmis- sion of signs, sounds or images, excluding the right as prescribed in the 12th bullet point of this paragraph; (h) The right of dissemination via information net- works, that is, the right to provide works that may be obtained by the public at the time and place selected by the public by wired or wire- less means; (i) the right of production, that is, the right to fix works onto the carrier of audiovisual works; (j) the right of adaptation, that is, the right to modify a work for the purpose of creating a new work of original creation;
(k) the right of translation, that is, the right to transform the language of a work into another language; (l) the right of compilation, that is, the right to choose or edit some works or fragments of works so as to form a new work; and (m) other rights which shall be enjoyed by the copyright owners. A copyright owner may wholly or partially transfer or permit others to exercise the above property rights. However, personal rights of the author cannot be transferred, deprived, restricted, or waived. Person- al rights cannot be assigned. After the death of the author, the rights of authorship, alteration, and integ- rity shall be protected by the author’s successor or legatee. 3.5 Term of Protection and Termination Duration of Personal Rights Protection • The rights of authorship, alteration, and integrity of an author shall be unlimited in time. • Although the right of publication falls under per- sonal rights, its duration of protection is the same as that of property rights. Duration of Property Rights Protection • In respect of a work created by a natural person, the duration of protection for property rights is the lifetime of the author plus 50 years after their death, ending on 31 December of the 50th year after the author’s death. For works of joint author- ship, the term expires on 31 December of the 50th year after the death of the last surviving author. • In respect of a work created by a legal entity or other organisation, or a work where the copyright is held by a legal entity or other organisation, the duration of protection for economic rights is 50 years, ending on 31 December of the 50th year after the work’s first publication. If the work is not published within 50 years after its creation, it is no longer protected by copyright law. China’s Copyright Law does not explicitly provide for a right of reversion (ie, the author’s right to reclaim a work after it has been transferred or licensed for valid reasons). However, in certain circumstances, such as when a book is out of print and the publisher refuses
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