Recently, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council jointly printed and distributed the Outline of China’s Cultural Reform and Development in the 12th Five-Year Plan Period (2011~2015)(hereinafter referred to as the Outline), defining to develop cultural industry by leaps and bounds and gradually make it the pillar industry in national economy. 

The Outline requests China to accelerate the development of cultural industry. Particularly in building modern cultural industry system, the country should redouble support to industries possessing indigenous IP and carrying forward traditional culture with a view to make famous brands. China will propel cultural and scientific innovation, study a batch of S&T subject matters with strategic importance, research and develop a group of core, pivotal and common technologies with proprietary IP, quicken the pace of cultural equipment manufacturing industry, support cultural equipment, software, system development and independent development by means of advanced technologies, speed up the transformation of S&T innovative results, lift the technological equipment level in such fields as publication, printing, media, film and video, performance, network, animation games and eventually enhance the core competiveness of cultural industry. 

The Outline also proposes to strengthen guidance to the production of cultural products. The country should consummate the assessment system of cultural products and incentive mechanism, redouble efforts in IP protection and launch copyright protection and other related services to safeguard copyright holders’ legitimate interests. 

In line with the deployment in the Outline, China will enhance the construction of cultural talents. High-level people will be supported to set up cultural enterprises. Measures on IP as capital shares will be bettered and favorable policies will be implemented to assist undertakings. 

It is informed that to ensure the implementation of the Outline, policies and measures were also put forward concerning governmental investment, cultural economy and trade, copyright and legal system. During the period of the 12th Five-Year Plan, China will reinforce IP protection to cultural enterprises and products in the stage of import and export. Meanwhile, the nation will also build copyright public service platform and copyright trade platform covering the fields like literary and art, radio, film and television and press and publication, and give support to copyright agencies, copyright value evaluation, copyright pledge registration and copyright investment and financing activities to normalize copyright trade. Moreover, China will also intensify the effective convergence between copyright administrative enforcement and judicial protection, curb various kinds of infringement and piracy actions and raise the awareness of the whole society in copyright protection. Last, the country will develop other industries relevant to copyrights.[Chinese version is available on SIPO.gov.cn]

(Source: IPR in China)