In 2012, Beijing Haidian District court heard a case brought by writer Han Han against search engine Baidu, with the author suing the website for copyright infringement of his work.
Han accused Baidu of "stealing" his work by publishing it online and offering his writing as free downloads as part of the site's Wenku literary database.
His lawyer said Baidu Wenku provided a channel for disseminating pirated works, resulting in copyright violations.
Baidu's lawyer said the Wenku literary database is simply a place for Internet users to store data, distancing the site from responsibility for copyright protection.
The court awarded Han 80,000 yuan in compensation, but didn't rule in favor of his other demands, including removal of Baidu's cloud storage data.
Such a minor penalty won't do much to a corporation worth tens of billions of U.S. dollars, but an individual writer definitely cannot afford the prolonged legal tussle, said Tang Yili, a judge with the special IPR court in south China's Shenzhen City.
The low cost of breaking the law stands in sharp contrast to the excessive costs and time needed to protect copyright, with the ceiling for fines only 500,000 yuan, said Zhang Hongbo, secretary-general of China Written Works Copyright Society.
"The prevalence of online piracy in China turns customers away from legitimate content and adversely affects the nation's creative sector," said Nie Zhenning, a national political advisor. It can also undermine China's reputation as a society that respects intellectual property, he said.
China's copyright regulator should strengthen its crackdown against infringement, encourage service providers to form an industry coalition to assess users' credit, and put offenders on a blacklist. Service providers with repeated offenses should have their licenses suspended or terminated, said Nie.
Service providers should also explore new commercial models that meet the needs of users without compromising copyright law. Nie suggested they notify copyright holders about how to lodge complaints and commit to handling complaints in a timely manner.
