Speaking to press at the 2008 International Copyright Forum in Beijing on October 27, Michael Keplinger, WIPO Deputy Director General highly praises China's efforts in copyright protection.

Mr. Keplinger is gratified to see the establishment and improvement of China's copyright system and the gradual perfection and strengthening of copyright administration in the past more than 20 years. According to him, he clearly sees the unprecedented improvement of Chinese people's understanding and recognition of copyright protection. In recent years, WIPO has extensive cooperation with Chinese Government. He hopes to see the long-lasting, deep and solid bilateral cooperation in the future, and wishes to cooperate with more organizations and institutions in China.

Regarding the problem of piracy in China, Mr. Keplinger thinks it is a problem universally existing worldwide. Early this year, he comes to China on behalf of WIPO to attend a seminar related to copyright held by the Supreme People's Court. He finds that China's judges and law enforcers have deep understanding to copyright. Thanks to their deep understanding to copyright protection for so many years, China has reached such a high level in terms of the copyright legal construction, improvement and implementation. This indicates China has achieved great progresses in its law-enforcement process.

Nantong Home Textile Fair is one of the units that win the gold medals of WIPO Copyright Creativity this time. Mr. Keplinger thinks that the city's mode of establishing grassroots copyright administration system is well worth learning. Intellectual fruits are very easily to be copied. If we organize the public to protect copyrights, we can reduce our administration costs, and as time passing by, we can greatly promote China's economic development. In 2007, WIPO and China's copyright administrative departments launch a joint research and have collected plenty of data. Related report will be submitted in March 2009. Mr. Keplinger hopes that the forum could remind more people that copyright protection is conducive not only to the world, but also to China.

On the question that whether the series of economic problems in the United States at the moment will exert influence to copyright and related industries, Mr. Keplinger thinks though some copyright-related problems exist, people may need more entertainment during economic depression, and the need will be greater than in good economic conditions. In this sense, the need for entertainment and cultural products will not drop because of economic reason. However, such economic depression may influence software industry. Since many software products are related to entertainment, it is very difficult to say it will influence to copyright realm.

Asked whether a copyright holder have the right to act as a law-enforcer and directly execute law-enforcement activity to a right infringer, Mr. Keplinger says that the manners of safeguarding copyrights should be determined by a country's system and regulations in laws. China has a different law system from the United States. When a right holder find his right being infringed, he may report to the National Copyright Administration, the very good platform to get help, and does not need to go to the court as in the United States.