With the development of technology, social media becomes an important way for modern citizens to connect with different people and deepen friends’ relationship. In order to improve the user experience and shore up the applications popularity on the social software platform, many social media apps provide numerous functions, such as copy, link and sharing, to reduce the operation complicity and offer convenience for users. However, these functions will accelerate the speed of the spread of information and invisibly facilitate the infringement behaviors on social media as plagiarism becomes easier in this area. This essay will discuss the phenomena of infringement of copyright in one of Chinese social software, Sina Weibo, evaluate the existing solution to this problem and propose an improved one to resolve it.
Sina Weibo, as the Chinese version of Twitter, has about 503 million registered users at the end of 2012. However, only 6% of the users post original works in a given week and about half of the accounts will just repost messages from other users (Paul, 2013). Although the length of microblogs is limited to 140 words, all these intellectual unique works in Weibo, including creative jocks, short novels and poems, original pictures, musics and videos are in the protection of Chinese copyright law(You Yunting, 2012). Some users may change the authors’ name, tamper the original works or even clone the whole works without declarations as they retweet the microblogs. Others may use these microblogs for commercial purpose without the permission from the original authors. As the original creators deserve the corresponding rights and interests, all these unauthorized behaviors will be considered as copyright violations.
In the first quarter of 2103 alone, according to the statistic data provided by Sina, the Weibo managers have received more than 1526 online reports and most of them complained about the piracy(Li Zongkuan, 2013).
In 2015, a beauty blogger named Ryiii found that one of the cosmetic websites, YOKA, was using her eyebrows drawing course to attract browsers’ attention without citing her work. This article’s editor even changed the author name and declined that it was her original work.
However, after Ryiii sued this website and editor, she only received a personal apology from the editor but not an official one from YOKA.
One of the existing solutions is seeking legal protection from China’s judicial departments. Currently, China has published a number of laws and regulations on copyright protection. Among them, the two most important laws are Tort Law of the people’s Republic of China [ Effective ] and Regulation on the Protection of the Right to the Network Dissemination of Information [ Revised ]. According to these laws, original authors who have been infringed can ask Sina Weibo managers to delete or block the relevant information and prosecute the violators to get the corresponding compensation(Li Zongkuan, 2013).
However, besides the high cost and long process of lawsuit, the low success rate itself has already scared off a lot of people. Although Sina office suggests users to register in real name, most people will still choose fake names to protect their privacy. When the plaintiffs try to collect evidence for lawsuit, it will become a large block for them as it is difficult to prove who is the real creator and who is the real violator. If this problem can not be clarified, the lawsuits will have a certain risk of being rejected. Also the violators can easily delete the relevant articles and pictures. All these behaviors will increase the difficulty of seeking evidence. Moreover, this solution focuses more on the corrective actions that citizens are liable for any criminal offense they committed due to the copyright issue, rather than try to eliminate the crime by enhancing the creativity of the citizens.
The proposed solution, Creativity Enhancement Program(CEP), aims to promote the public’s creativity, especially the teenagers and consequently eliminate their intention of piracy. The program consists of two aspects, one is from school and the other is from students’ families. Local schools can conduct a series of culture activities such as original singing or design competitions at regular intervals. Winners will be awarded with bonuses such as bursaries or provided with chances to further their talent through advanced professional courses from the famous schools in music or arts area. Since the contests are fairly held and opportunities are equally presented, all the students can attend the competitions. The rich prize will motivate the students and inspire their enthusiasm for creativity. The encouragement from students’ families will also play an important role throughout the growing-up process of children. Parents can use several ways to train their children’s creativity such as spending time to brainstorm or inspiring their thought through asking questions. The thinking habit cultivated by the family environment will deeply root into children’s minds and benefit their whole lives. Funds of the establishment of CEP can be obtained from relevant educational departments or school administration. The subsequent cultural activities can be advertised in social media such as Facebook, twitter, school noticeboard,etc.
In conclusion, infringement of copyright is indulged by the development of social media. The government should raise the awareness of the copyright issue through different aspects such as policy, program and education. The Creativity Enhancement Program is believed to promote the awareness of infringement of copyright and increase the creativity of them.
References:
Li Zongkuan.(2013). 微时代如何应对微博侵权. How to deal with the infringement in Weibo’s time. Retrieved April 7, 2015 from
Paul Mozur.(2013). How many people really use Sina Weibo. Retrieved April 7, 2015 from http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/03/12/how-many-people-really-use-sina-weibo/
You Yunting.(2012). Analysis on the copyright infringement on microblog. Retrieved April 7, 2015 from
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