Supreme People's Court, Several Questions on the Application of Law in Trial of Copyright Civil Dispute Cases Interpretation

Promulgated: October 12 2002
Effective: October 15 2002
Applicability: This judicial Interpretation shall take precedence over all previous law that conflicts (Article 32).

Main contents: Overall, the Interpretation clarifies issues relating to procedure, rights of authors, publishers and producers, software and compensation issues relating to the PRC Copyright Law and other related laws. The Interpretation lays out the kinds of copyright civil disputes that courts will adjudicate and what levels of courts shall have jurisdiction over such cases (Articles 1 and 2). Even in the event that an administrative department has handled the case in the past the court should still adjudicate the dispute, and the court should make a complete investigation into the facts (Article 3). The Interpretation also deals with such procedural issues as forum selection (Article 5) and evidence (Articles 7 and 8). The Interpretation also dictates how copyright should be handled when independent works are done on the same topic (Article 15). The Interpretation also deals with several issues involving publishers and producers and their rights and obligations (Articles 19, 20 and 23). As for compensation, in addition to compensation for fees of collecting evidence and conducting an investigation, lawyers' fees may also be part of the compensation package (Article 26). The Interpretation also clarifies that the copyright law before revision applies to cases handled by the people's court after October 27 2001 only when the civil acts involved occurred before October 27 2001 (Article 31).
Related legislation: PRC Civil Law General Principles, Apr 12 1986; PRC Contract Law, Mar 15 1999, CLP 1999 No.4 p19; PRC Trademark Law (2nd Revision), Oct 27 2001, CLP 2001 No.10 p75 and PRC Civil Procedure Law (2nd Revision)