What is the current most comprehensive law regarding IPR protection for blogs' authors? and what is the relevant law in China do the same?
In china, people writing blogs are getting very popular.
Good Answers (1)
Lisa B.
Attorney at Iverson Yoakum Papiano & Hatch
Best Answers in: Intellectual Property (2), Property Law (1)
Timely question.
This answer will only speak to US copyright law and only to protection in the commercial sense. This is very general but I hope it helps.
In the absence of an express agreement between the blog author and the entity hosting the blog, all intellectual property rights, such as copyrights in original expressions of the author published for the first time in the blog, would generally remain the property of the author under US law. In other words, the blog writer owns the copyright in the content of the blog unless the author makes some other written financial arrangement with the hosting site.
Both LiveJournal's and Blogger's Terms of Service confirm that this is their position regarding ownership of copyright in matter published in blogs hosted by them.
Along with retaining copyright, the blog author also retains responsibility and potential liability for the content of blog posts. For example, in the US, the blog author generally bears responsibility for any infringing content in the blog, and agrees not to infringe or harm the rights of others as a condition of publishing through the blog hosting service. The procedures for dealing with alleged infringement on blogs generally follow the notice and counter-notice procedures under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Those procedures are primarily to protect blog hosting sites and Internet Service Providers. The blog author still remains liable to an injured party and to the blog host for damages, whether or not infringing content is removed. Thus, web hosting sites and Internet Service Providers will often err on the side of removing potentially infringing content if a question is raised.
In the absence of an agreement to the contrary, it is not the blog host's responsibility to ensure the blog author continued access to material originally published on the blog. In fact, LiveJournal's Terms of Service expressly reserves LiveJournal's right to resell any portion of a user's LiveJournal back to that individual. The lesson here is that a blog author should retain backup storage for any original content to which the author wants to ensure access.
If your question refers to the Chinese's government's restricting access to LiveJournal, Blogger and other blogging sites, that is a slightly different topic than IPR protection. Recent news and commentary on that subject can be found at http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/faq/.
Please also see the links to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Blogger's FAQ on intellectual property and the sample Terms of Service at the bottom of this answer.
