Authoritative answer: Does printing Journey to the West and Romance of the Three Kingdoms constitute infringement? Publishing House | Books | Authoritative

"My son was really messed up..." In order to help her son, who had just entered first grade, learn pinyin, Ms. Zhang purchased a book called "Pinyin Encyclopedia" online. However, her son often made mistakes when reading pinyin. Upon closer inspection, she found that the content in this book was frequently incorrect.

For this, Ms. Zhang angrily reported to the police. The police sent Ms. Zhang's "Complete Collection of Pinyin" to Beijing Children's Publishing House for appraisal, and soon found out that it was a pirated book!

In April this year, the People's Procuratorate of Shuyang County, Jiangsu Province, after examination, believed that the suspect Li Hong copied and distributed works such as other people's words for profit without the permission of the copyright owner. The circumstances were particularly serious, and he should be investigated for criminal responsibility as a crime of copyright infringement.

A best-selling book seller who graduated from junior high school

Li Hong, born in 1985 in Chengwu County, Shandong Province, has a junior high school education. As early as 2010, he worked in printing factories in Beijing, Hebei and other places. Over the past decade, Li Hong became familiar with the owners of multiple printing and paper factories.

In 2020, Li Hong heard that the book market in Shuyang was very large, so he came here to run business and obtained customers by sending business cards to various merchants at Shuyang International Book City.

Shuyang International Book City covers an area of 50 acres with a building area of approximately 100000 square meters. Its business scope covers book markets, cultural markets, e-commerce centers, etc. It is a large-scale, leading, and well-equipped physical and online book trading center in China.

At first, Li Hong only sold genuine books, but he found that few merchants approached him to purchase them.

After market research, Li Hong found that other suppliers were selling at lower prices than his own purchase price. After multiple inquiries, Li Hong found that those so-called "cheap books" were nothing but pirated books. So Li Hong was also moved.

With the help of the previously established network, Li Hong quickly contacted Zhang Yang and Liu Bin, both of whom had previously worked in a printing factory. Zhang Yang was responsible for scanning and typesetting, while Liu Bin was responsible for production. The three of them hit it off at once.

After discussion, Li Hong obtained best-selling legitimate books from the market and handed them to Zhang Yang for scanning and typesetting into electronic copies. Liu Bin then contacted the printing factory for batch printing.

In order to further reduce costs, Liu Bin directly purchased paper from the paper mill and sent it to the printing factory for book printing. Li Hong adds 0.3 to 0.5 yuan per book to wholesale to merchants in the Book City. Due to the price being much lower than the market price, Li Hong's "low price" scholar intention became increasingly strong, and even a situation of "supply shortage" occurred at one point -5000 copies of "Red Rock", 5000 copies of "Fortress Besieged", 10000 copies of "Camel Xiangzi" and 20000 miles under the sea each

Li Hong also rented a warehouse in the suburbs to store pirated books. Because he knew that selling pirated books was illegal, Li Hong never delivered them to his doorstep. Instead, he contacted them through WeChat and sent them through local express delivery. At the same time, he also hired Zhou and others to help him pack and ship them.

As the boss, Li Hong is responsible for contacting buyers and settling accounts with the courier company. Zhou and others are responsible for the distribution, shipment, and unloading of goods.

Found 20000 copies on site

There are over 200 merchants in the Book City, most of which have opened online stores. Some merchants even have several online stores, and even if their accounts are banned for selling counterfeit goods, the losses are not significant. The pirated book purchased by Ms. Zhang was shipped from the Book City. Based solely on the clues provided by the informant and the preliminary investigation, investigators find it difficult to determine the scale of the sale of pirated books.

The public security organs divided the troops into several routes and quickly deployed the network for investigation. A week later, the public security organs roughly outlined the outline of the gang selling pirated books: it is an industrial chain that integrates scanning, typesetting, printing, and sales, with members mainly located in Shandong, Hebei, and other places.

At the same time as handling the case, the Shuyang County Anti Pornographic and Illegal Publications and Illegal Publications Office decided to launch a centralized action of "Anti Pornographic and Illegal Publications and Illegal Publications - Correct Way". Led by the County Political and Legal Affairs Committee, a special task force was established by the public security, procuratorial and legal departments to carry out centralized rectification of the book market.

Further investigation by the public security organs revealed that there are more than 80 merchants selling pirated books in the Book City, mainly through bookstores and online stores at the school entrance. They all order from Li Hong through WeChat, and the price is only a quarter of the price of genuine books.

Li Hong is well aware that selling "low-priced" books is an illegal act. He requires the staff to fill in the shipping information and address as false information during each shipment, such as Li Wu, Wang Er, etc.

By investigating the shipping process, investigators determined that the shipping point is located in a warehouse on the outskirts of Shuyang County. On July 1, 2022, the Shuyang County Public Security Bureau initiated an investigation into the case. On July 8th, Li Hong was arrested and brought to justice, and more than 20000 pirated books were seized at the scene. According to Li Hong's account, on July 19th and 20th, the public security organs arrested Zhang Yang and Liu Bin in Hebei, Shandong and other places.

On August 7th of the same year, due to the significant, difficult, and complex nature of the case, the Shuyang County Public Security Bureau invited the County Procuratorate to intervene in advance.

According to Article 217 of the Criminal Law, as long as the work is copied and distributed for profit without the permission of the copyright owner, and the amount of illegal gains is relatively large or there are other serious circumstances, it constitutes the crime of copyright infringement.

Investigators started from the suspect's WeChat and Alipay transfer records, retrieved the third-party platform "flow", and spliced it with the bank card "flow" to find out the amount of crime. Alipay, Tenpay and other third-party platforms have also issued transfer details of suspect. Investigators compare the occurrence time of each payment with the order in the WeChat chat record to determine the amount of responsibility of the suspect.

Is printing Journey to the West and Romance of the Three Kingdoms considered infringement

In the subsequent evidence collection of book infringement facts, Li Hong argued that "the copyright of works such as Journey to the West and Romance of the Three Kingdoms belongs to the 'public edition' and there is no infringement of copyright". Originally, the protection of intellectual property rights for works had a period of time, and works that had passed the copyright protection period entered the public domain became a shared resource of society.

Public edition books, also known as public copyright books, commonly known as "public edition books", refer to works published by authors, artists, and other individuals who are not restricted by copyright laws, and their use will not infringe on the author's copyright. According to Article 20 and Article 21 of the current Copyright Law of China, except for the rights of authorship, modification, and protection of the integrity of works, the legal rights of Chinese citizens over their works shall expire on December 31 of the 50th year after the author's death.

For example, since Pu Songling passed away in 1715, more than 50 years after his death, adapting "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" into a film and television drama now does not require authorization from Pu Songling's descendants, nor does it require payment of copyright fees to Pu Songling's descendants.

Faced with Li Hong's defense, the handling prosecutor pointed out that according to the provisions of the Copyright Law, although the copyright property rights of "public edition" works are no longer protected, others do not need to obtain the consent of the author's family or copyright inheritors to publish, adapt, perform, or disseminate "public edition" works, nor do they need to pay copyright royalties. However, the cover design of public edition books is generally designed by the publishing unit itself or commissioned by others. If it constitutes a work under the Copyright Law, the publishing unit enjoys copyright. The layout design rights of books belong to the category of adjacency rights and are also protected by copyright law.

At the same time, investigators also pointed out that publishing institutions will process works such as layout design, format arrangement, structural planning, title formulation, and typesetting during the editing and publishing process of public editions. These are also intellectual labor and have a certain degree of originality, which is still protected by the Copyright Law.

After further analysis by both parties, the task force changed its investigation approach and transformed content infringement into layout design infringement to make accusations against the suspect's infringement behavior.

Subsequently, investigators compared the pirated books with the legitimate books published by the original publishing house in terms of layout design and other aspects. After being appraised by a professional appraisal agency, it was ultimately determined that the books sold by the suspect infringed on the copyright of public works such as Journey to the West and Romance of the Three Kingdoms published by the publishing house.

"I pleaded guilty and wanted to take advantage of legal loopholes, but in the end, it was myself who caused harm," Li Hong told the investigating prosecutor.

After examination, it was determined that Li Hong sold more than 2 million pirated books with a value of over 14 million yuan. In January of this year, the People's Procuratorate of Shuyang County filed a public prosecution against the case. The procuratorial organs believe that Li Hong, for the purpose of profit, copied and distributed other people's works without the permission of the copyright owner. The circumstances are particularly serious and he should be held criminally responsible for the crime of copyright infringement.

Without real name verification, express delivery also bears responsibility

The procuratorial organs simultaneously supervise the registration of the owners of the printing factory and the merchants of the book city involved in the case. As of now, the public security organs have filed 18 cases against printing factory owners, book city merchants, and other individuals involved in the case. Eight people have been transferred to the Shuyang County Procuratorate for prosecution on charges of copyright infringement or selling infringing copies, and the remaining 10 people are under further investigation.

The investigating prosecutor also found that there were violations by the courier company. The illegal publications in this case were all mailed to merchants through the courier company, and investigators found that the sender and location were all false information. During the process of receiving mail items, the courier company did not implement a strict system of verifying the identity information of the sender, and did not review the sender's identity information and mailing location.

In March of this year, the People's Procuratorate of Shuyang County submitted a recommendation to the County Postal Administration to strictly verify the identity information of the sender. When picking up packages, couriers should guide users to accurately fill in the detailed information of the sender and recipient. Delivery must be done with 100% real name, and the delivered items should be opened and inspected in person.

At the same time, the procuratorial organs issued a risk warning letter to the competent unit of Shuyang Asset Investment Management Co., Ltd. in the Book City, pointing out three risk warnings: insufficient legal awareness of merchants, inadequate daily supervision of merchants by the company, and insufficient standardization of merchant entry contracts, which may lead to management loopholes. The risk warning letter should also be copied to the Shuyang County Cultural Comprehensive Law Enforcement Brigade.

Subsequently, the Shuyang County Cultural Comprehensive Law Enforcement Brigade conducted a special inspection on the licenses, book content, and procurement channels of merchants in the Book City, while also conducting online law enforcement inspections on online bookstores.

"The comprehensive crackdown on the production, supply, and sales of pirated books has not only effectively deterred criminals and purified the operating order of the teaching auxiliary book market, but also demonstrated the determination of judicial and administrative law enforcement agencies to protect intellectual property rights," said Zhu Manli, a representative of the Jiangsu Provincial People's Congress and the Director of Education at Shuyang Senior High School.