Beijing, China – March 30, 2010 – The National People’s Congress (NPC) has passed the second amendments to the Copyright Law and published the full text of the amended Copyright Law, which will come into force on 1 April 2010. Article 4 has been amended such that “Copyright owners must not act in breach of the Constitutional Law and other laws or in conflict with the public interests in exercising their copyrights. This Country shall lawfully supervise publications and circulations of works”. A new article has been inserted to become Article 26, which provides that “To pledge a copyright, the pledgor and pledgee concerned shall complete the pledge registration with the copyright authority under the State Council.
Edward E. Lehman, Managing Director of Lehman, Lee & Xu commented: “the new amendments are general and small in amount, but it shows that the Chinese legislators are ready to make changes with the progress of the society. It is expected more amendments will be made in future when necessary.”