With the booming development of China’s film and television industry, people are now paying more attention to the copyright issues related to this industry, which is simultaneously giving rise to an increase in copyright litigation.
Section 15 of the Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China provides that: “The director, screenwriter, lyricist, composer, cameraman and other authors of a cinematographic, television or video graphic work shall enjoy the right of authorship in the work, while the other rights included in the copyright shall be enjoyed by the producer of the work.”
However, the use of the terms “production company”, “producer”, “joint production company”, “coproduced companies” and other lists of names or individuals shown during the opening and closing credits make it difficult to discern who owns the actual copyrights. Therefore, confirming who actually owns the copyrights to the film or TV work is the primary issue of many copyright infringement litigations.
Generally, in situations where there is no joint production company or coproduction companies, the production company listed during the film or TV works’ opening and closing credits is the actual owner of the works’ copyrights. One should notice that if a natural person is listed as producer that this is only a job title. This person is most likely a legal representative of a production company and does not hold any actual copyrights to the film or TV work.
It is relatively more complicated to confirm the copyright holder when jointly produced companies or coproduced companies are displayed during the opening and closing credits. These production companies may have participated through investment and the making of the film or TV work, but it is likely that in most situations production companies have only partially financed and filmed such works while other production companies only producers in name or play a limited role in the shooting of the film or TV work.
Whatever the situation, those who actually assumed the investment risk and did the film or TV works production should enjoy the ownership of copyright. However, it is too complicated for the public to distinguish the actual relationship between jointly produced companies or co-produced companies.
The Production License, TV Series Issuance License and Film Release License of the film and television works will contain the information pertaining to the production company and joint production company. However, because China focuses mainly on the investigation and censorship of a film or TV works’ content during the production and administrative licensing issuance procedures rather than putting a focus on investigating these works to determine who holds copyrights, the information on the production company and joint production company from the above described licenses cannot accurately show the rightful holder of the film or TV works’ copyrights.
Presently, in practice, several film companies cannot obtain the above described licenses due to their inability and inaptitude to do so. They must cooperate with a company that posses the ability to obtain such licensing and use that company’s name or take on the label of co-producer.
Therefore although the above-described licenses could be of some use in proving who has film or TV works copyright in a film or TV works copyright dispute, to confirm the actual copyright holder, one would need an internal agreement between all parties, a film and television production contract or other proof of this kind.
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