Copyright collective management associations in the Chinese mainland and Taiwan have reached an agreement to cooperate on collection of royalties.

The mainland-based China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS) signed a reciprocal agreement with Taiwan-based Chinese Oral and Literary Copyright Collective Management Association (COLCCMA) here Sunday, according to a statement released by the CWWCS Monday.

According to this agreement, from 2011, the COLCCMA will collect royalties from Taiwan's universities and copy shops for duplicating works of mainland authors.

The COLCCMA is also authorized to bring law suits against the copy shops if they refuse to pay the royalties, according to the statement.

The royalties collected in Taiwan will be transferred to the CWWCS and then paid to the mainland authors, said Zhang Hongbo, deputy director of the CWWCS.

Zhang said the CWWCS will collect royalties for Taiwanese authors for the use of their written works in the mainland's newspapers and textbooks.

The agreement does not cover royalty collections from the mainland's copy shops as there is no widely-recognized system in place for them.

Zhang said that during a meeting with Fu Chau-Hsing, board chairman of the COLCCMA, Fu expressed the need to streamline the mainland's royalty collection system.

According to the statement, the CWWCS represents more than 4,000 writers on the Chinese mainland on copyright affairs.