Government Participation in Digital Copyright Licensing in the Cloud Computing Environment - Challenges of Information Management Beyond the Cloud - page 85

and other public cultural facilities nationwide. For example, in rural areas, NCIRSP
service system provides all kinds of rich cultural resources for grassroots residents
through Internet or removable storage and CD-ROM, through indoor and outdoor
concentrated slideshows, television and PC services, and others [43].
As for Copyright issues, NCIRSP adopts principles of "Copyright First 1 " and
"Copyright one-vote veto 2 ". In practice, channels to get copyright of digital resources
include: reception, collection, procurement, agent processing, statutory licensing and
so on [44]. As for film and other works invested by the state, the NCIRSP members
could use them free of charge [45].
Theory of Government Participation in Public Welfare Service and Digital
Licensing
A) Public Welfare Service. Government participation in public welfare service is
definitely affirmed by contemporary administrative management and political
economics theories [46]. As the guarantor of public interest, the government makes up
the deficiency of market economy and increases the social benefits through its
intervention and the economy is improved by its participation [47].
According to the "Information Network Transmission Right Protection Ordinance",
resources meeting certain conditions are in within the scope of the statutory license
conditions of China, which allows the provision of services via the Internet to help the
poor [48]. Because NCIRSP is a public welfare project with a mandate of protecting
information and cultural rights of people, it is within the scope of statutory license [49].
B) Digital Licensing. China Copyright Law 1990 provided four kinds of statutory
license and Copyright Law 2010 added five more [1, Articles 23, 33, 40, 43-44].
Regulation on Protection of the Right to Network Dissemination of Information creates
an announcement system for statutory license, which authorizes ICPs to provide works
related to assisting the poor on planting and breeding, disease prevention and treatment,
and disaster prevention and mitigation, and works meeting the fundamental cultural
demands of the poor without licensing, but with remuneration to the copyright owners
according to the announced standard [48]. The announcement system has been
proposed by the Ministry of Culture in the second course of copyright law revision,
which was eventually accepted by the legislature [50].
In 2005, the general office of the CPC forwarded a file on “Further Strengthening of
the National Cultural Information Resources Sharing Project Construction Opinions",
which affirmed that copyright works such as films invested by the state can be used
freely by NCIRSP [51]. Ways of government purchases of public service mainly
1 "Copyright first" refers to the pre-stage of cultural sharing project; the project team will organize
consulting experts and carry out the negotiations with the copyright owners to get authorization
to assure that every work used by the project is licensed.
2 "Copyright one-vote veto" system is such that if there is one person among all stakeholders who
does not give permission to use the work, then this work will not be included as an object in the
NCIRSP.