Karaokes must pay to play

Chinese karaoke bar operators must pay copyright royalties for using musical works, Yan Xiaohong, deputy-director of the National Copyright Administration (NCA), said during an Internet interview in late February.

Yan said at present most operators agree and the payment of royalties will not affect their operations. He emphasized that it is not NCA but copyright holders who collect royalties.

He said the rates charged can be discussed and negotiated between the authorized collective management organizations of copyright holders and the karaoke industry association. Yan said the government will leave the rate issue to the two civil entities for negotiation.

Science ethics announced

The Chinese Academy of Sciences put forward a set of new regulations recently aimed at strengthening scientific honesty and curbing academic fraud.

The regulations define basic principles for scientific conduct, such as honesty, publicity and fairness. The regulations also define scientific misconduct, outline punishments and establish a science ethics committee to supervise research and monitor misconduct.

A declaration on scientific concepts was also announced with the new regulations. It calls for the scientific community to respect the values and spirit of science, and uphold their moral and social responsibilities.

Following a string of scandals involving academic fraud and plagiarism, China issued a set of interim regulations on scientific misconduct late last year.

More bioindustry needed

China will speed up the development of its bioindustry, making it a leading industry, according to a conference held last month by the State Council.

The meeting, attended by Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan and State Councilor Chen Zhili, emphasized the strategic importance of developing the bioindustry in health, agriculture, energy and materials.

It also stipulated that China should create a better financing environment for high-tech industries, unify technological standards and improve the protection of intellectual property rights.

The country should also strengthen protection of biological resources with more effective supervision on resource use, according to the meeting.

Independent IP rate

According to a recent official survey, only 0.03 percent of Chinese domestic enterprises have core independent intellectual properties (IP), with 99 percent having no patent applications and 60 percent without independent trademarks, said Tian Lipu, head of the State Intellectual Property Office, at a recent IP conference in Southwest China's Guizhou province.

Tian said China should strengthen its IP work to increase both its quality and quantity. The country is now formulating an IP strategy, including one outline and 20 topics, which will focus on the problems in the IP legal system, talent cultivation, working mechanisms and capacity construction.

List for gov't procurement

China plans to give priority to innovative products from Chinese-owned or -controlled enterprises for government procurement. Such products need to be certified before they can be recommended for government procurement and major engineering projects, according to new regulations issued jointly by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance.

Qin Yong, a deputy director with MOST, says companies, including joint ventures that are majority owned by Chinese, can register their products on the National Innovative Products List, which is scheduled to be issued later this year. MOST is preparing an application and evaluation process that will also be completed this year, says Qin.

BitTorrent goes legitimate

BitTorrent, a startup based on the popular download technology of the same name in the United States, is launching a website that will sell downloads of films and TV shows licensed from the studios.

The BitTorrent Entertainment Network is set to launch with films from Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Lionsgate and episodes of TV shows such as 24 and Punk'd.

TV episodes are $1.99 to download to own, which is typical for competing sites such as Apple Inc's iTunes. The new site will rent movies for a 24-hour viewing period for $3.99 for new titles and $2.99 for older films, but will not to sell films at this time because prices demanded by the studios were too high.

The launch of a legitimate online store marks a turning point for the technology that powers the site. Other sites that use the open-source file transfer technology have long accounted for a substantial percentage of illegal peer-to-peer download traffic.

Computer giants settle suit

Cisco Systems Inc and Apple Inc said they have settled the trademark-infringement lawsuit that threatened to derail Apple's use of the iPhone name for its much-hyped new iPod cellular phone gadget.

The companies say they reached an agreement that will allow Apple to use the name for its sleek new multimedia device in exchange for exploring wide-ranging interoperability between the companies' products in the field of security, as well as consumer and business communications.

The showdown between the Silicon Valley tech heavyweights began in January when Cisco sued Apple in San Francisco federal court claiming that Apple's use of the iPhone name constituted a "willful and malicious" violation of a trademark that Cisco has owned since 2000.

Cisco's Linksys division has been using the trademark since last spring on a line of phones that make free long-distance calls over the Internet using a technology called Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

(China Daily 03/12/2007 page9)