China's Role in Global Copyright Landscape from the Beijing Treaty and the Marrakesh Treaty and Onwards

April 27, 2022

On April 24, Ms. Liu Hua, Director of WIPO Office in China, attended and addressed a theme event entitled "The Newborn of Artistic Copyright --Strengthening the Protection of Folklore and Promoting the Implementation of the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances" in Beijing.

Liu Hua mentioned that there were two landmark events in the field of international copyright in relation to China this year: the 10th anniversary of the signing and the 2nd anniversary of the entry into force of the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances, and China's deposit of the instrument of ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty to WIPO on February 5, and its entry into force on May 5. She said the two events reflected China's increasing role in global copyright cooperation.

China is gradually changing from a follower and runner to a leader in global copyright cooperation

As the first international IP treaty signed in China and named after a Chinese city since the establishment of the United Nations, the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances is of great significance for improving the system of protection of the rights of international performers, promoting the healthy and prosperous development of cultural industries in various countries in the world, and promoting the development of Chinese culture and traditional folk performing arts. The entry into force of the Marrakesh Treaty in China will demonstrate China's humanitarianism to the blind, visually impaired or print disabled groups around the world, giving the 314 million blind and visually impaired people in the world more access to the world’s oldest and richest continuing literary and cultural traditions, and benefiting and nourishing over 17 million persons of blind and visually impaired community in China with the world's culture and civilization. The flourishing cultural and creative undertakings in China have become a new engine for innovation-driven development.

China's cultural and creative undertakings have flourished and have become a new engine for innovation-driven development

In 2021, the added value of China's copyright industry was RMB7.51 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.58% year-on-year, and accounted for 7.39% of GDP. Between 2016 and 2020, the average annual growth rate of the added value of China's copyright industry was 8.3%, 0.2 percentage points higher than the GDP in the same period. In 2021, China ranked first in the creative goods exports, surpassed South Korea to become the world's sixth largest music market, and ranked first with US$7.3 billion in the international box office market (excluding the United States and Canada) . The copyright industry has added "copyright power" to the high-quality development of China's economy. WIPO believes that China's achievements in innovation and creation are remarkable, and the rise of China's innovation economy is not just an artifact of one or two indicators, but something that we are seeing in all pillars of the innovation ecosystem.

Chinese youth have a lot to offer in China's cultural and creative undertakings

Young people are not only the main body of invention and creation, but also the backbone towards sustainable developement in today's digitizing era. Among over 10 million online literary authors in more than 500 literary websites in China, 74% of the new authors after 2018 are "post-95"; among the top 20 films in China's box office in 2021, 6 are from young directors; the "Tencent Musicians Annual Report" released by Tencent Group shows that in 2021, the "post-95" and "post-00" musician groups have accounted for more than half of the total number of musicians on the whole platform, becoming the main force of original music creation.

The theme of World IP Day 2022 focuses on IP and Youth: Innovating for the Future. Liu Hua introduced WIPO's various activities to celebrate World IP Day and WIPO's global IP service system, and invited Chinese youth to make full use of WIPO's global IP services, databases and cooperation platforms, to participate more in WIPO's global copyright cooperation and exchanges, and discussions in new fields and new tracks, and to make their own contributions to human economic development, social progress and people-to-people exchanges.

The event was hosted by the Beijing Municipal Copyright Bureau and jointly organized by the Capital Copyright Society, the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Publicity Department of Beijing Dongcheng District Committee in Beijing. Mr. Wang Zhicheng, Director General of Copyright Department of National Copyright Administration of China, Mr. Wang Yefei, Director General of Beijing Municipal Copyright Bureau, Ms. Wang Xiaolin, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Ms. Zhao Haiying, Director of the Publicity Department of Beijing Dongcheng District Committee participated in the event.