CNKI: Intellectual property infringement stems from a lack of supervision; a monopoly should strictly abide by the law.
Compiled from: Guangdong Communist Youth League, People's Daily
Case review
China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) has once again been swept onto the hot seat, this time because it was taken to court by a retired professor. According to media reports, Zhao Dexin, a retired professor from Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in his late eighties, sued CNKI for illegally including over a hundred of his papers and won all the cases, receiving more than 700,000 yuan in total compensation. After losing the case, CNKI removed all of Professor Zhao’s papers from its database and will no longer include his articles.
The elderly person stated that the reason for defending his rights was that CNKI had included more than 100 of his articles and distributed them through computers, mobile phones, and other devices. Not only was he not informed, but he also had to pay a fee when downloading himself, while he had never received any royalties. In August 2020, Zhao Dexin initiated multiple lawsuits against China Academic Journals (CD-ROM Edition) Electronic Publishing House Co., Ltd. (the operator of 'CNKI'), with the cases mainly involving disputes over the infringement of the right to information network dissemination of works.
On December 30, 2020, the Beijing Internet Court made a first-instance judgment in one of the cases: the defendant, China Academic Journals (CD Edition) Electronic Magazine Co., Ltd., was ordered to compensate Zhao Dexin for economic losses of 2,800 yuan and reasonable rights-protection expenses of 534 yuan, totaling 3,334 yuan.
[5] "Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China"
Article 10 Copyright includes the following moral rights and property rights:
……
(12) The right of information network dissemination refers to the right to provide works to the public through wired or wireless means, enabling the public to access the works at times and places of their choosing;
……
The copyright owner may authorize others to exercise the rights specified in items (v) to (xvii) of the preceding paragraph and obtain remuneration in accordance with the agreement or the relevant provisions of this law.
The copyright owner may transfer all or part of the rights specified in items (5) to (17) of the first paragraph of this article, and receive remuneration in accordance with the agreement or relevant provisions of this law.
[1] The author's perspective
It is reported that in the 'Chinese Economic History Research' it is written: This journal has been included in the 'China Academic Journals (CD Edition)' and 'China Journal Network', and copyright fees and remuneration are paid in a lump sum. If authors do not agree to have their articles included, they should state this in writing when submitting their manuscripts, and the journal will handle it appropriately. However, such a statement does not mean that the platform has the effect of permission to use the information network dissemination rights. The Beijing Intellectual Property Court also stated in the second trial that a journal's unilateral declaration through a submission agreement is insufficient to prove that it has obtained from the author the rights to authorize and sublicense the information network dissemination rights of the work in question.
As a platform that holds exclusive resources, CNKI is a large Chinese database with a huge influence in the academic community, and therefore should strictly abide by the law and respect intellectual property. However, CNKI as a platform has always been controversial. From charging high fees for paper plagiarism checks to charging authors for downloading their own papers; from allowing academic articles to be included at low or even no cost, to labeling high prices when users download them, etc. The underlying reason is that CNKI dominates the market and lacks proper regulation. Students need CNKI to write papers, plagiarism checks rely heavily on CNKI, professors use CNKI for evaluations, and academic achievements depend on CNKI, yet there is no corresponding regulatory force to balance it, which has led to the current situation.
In fact, the greater the influence, the greater the responsibility. A platform like CNKI should never abuse its influence at any time, turning into a case of 'big store bullying customers.' When facing rights protection and criticism, CNKI should show genuine willingness to solve problems, earn everyone's understanding, humbly accept supervision and criticism, and find a reasonable and legal balance between social responsibility for intellectual property protection and business development. This is the proper path for long-term development.
