Copyright battles shouldn't be fought for wrong reasons
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But the Chinese tradition actually highly respects originality, creativity and authorship. Impelled by the boom of commercial publishing in China in the 11th century, this literary tradition soon stimulated the advent of copyright protection.
Today there is an "expectation" issue. Netizens are used to free Internet. It is therefore necessary to make people realize that the emergence of the Internet does not necessarily mean everything is entirely free.
Yet it has been widely argued by leading Western scholars that overprotection of intellectual property, including overpricing, is a more serious issue as compared to copyright infringement.
The fact is that copyright holders and their lobbyists in developed countries have been globally active in seeking stronger copyright protection, at the cost of the public interest of access to knowledge.
A recent example is the US-proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, which covers about 10 countries. It is criticized for being an US wish-list that would create regulations favoring the entertainment industry over the public interest.
Chinese copyright owners, such as Shanda, should be wary of this global background and remain unaffected by international lobbyists purporting unreasonably strong IPR laws. They should bear in mind that knowledge creativity is not standalone but cumulative. The better you can access knowledge, the more you can create.
So, viewing access to knowledge as free is wrong. But this does not mean access to knowledge should be restricted or unreasonably priced.
Technological changes have made it necessary to look for alternative solutions, different from the traditional practice of copyright law.
For instance, the Creative Commons model is a good pattern that can both reward creativity and foster the sharing of knowledge.
We must remain cautious about the driving forces behind Shanda's lawsuit. Let's hope Shanda's motivation is not influenced by the global "virus" of a strong copyright mentality.
After all, there is one question policymakers in China must ask themselves: By promoting copyright protection more strongly, will they fall into the trap of overprotection, leading to suffocating China's continuous creativity and public interest?
The author is an expert on international intellectual property law. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn
