China Copyright Protection: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Plagiarism

 /  Legal  / 
How do you know when a copyright has been infringed? For years, this wasn’t even a question people asked in China because it was so obvious. Slowly but surely, though, China’s enforcement of copyright infringement has improved. Read More

Chinese Video Streaming Platform AcFun Reveals Security Breach

 /  Legal  / 
Chinese video streaming platform AcFun recently revealed that hackers had stolen data of tens of thousands of user. The company apologized for the breach and admitted that the leak was due to insufficient precautions to secure the platform. Read More

China Movie Stars and The Two-Contract Problem

 /  Legal  / 
Over the past couple weeks, the Chinese Internet has been abuzz with chatter about how Chinese movie stars allegedly underreport income via a dual-contract system in which only one contract is disclosed to the tax authorities. Read More

China Trademarks – For a Few Characters More

 /  Legal  / 
Paramount Pictures could protect the Vin Diesel secret agent franchise “XXX” with a trademark registration, but the British band The XX and the seminal Los Angeles punk band X would be out of luck. Read More

Video Platform Douyin Sues Tencent for Defamation

 /  Legal  / 
The court in Beijing’s Haidian district has accepted a case brought by Bytedance-operated short video platform Douyin which is suing Tencent for defamation and requesting RMB 1 million in damages including an apology. Read More

China Online Gaming: Trademark and Copyright and Patent Protections

 /  Game  / 
China presents a wealth of opportunities for foreign gaming companies, but (and this is true of pretty much every IP-laden industry), it also presents substantial risks. Read More

PUBG Corp Sues NetEase for Infringing Chicken and Pan Copyrights

 /  Legal  / 
South Korea’s PUBG Corp, the developer of hit game Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), is suing NetEase in the US for copyright infringement, unfair competition and trade dress infringement over the Chinese company’s Knives Out and Rules of Survival. Read More

Dual Language China Contracts: Don’t Get Fooled!

 /  Legal  / 
Foreign companies sign dual language contracts without knowing exactly what the Chinese language portion of their contract says. This is really risky dangerous. Many dual language Chinese-English contracts are silent on which language controls. Read More

China Non Disclosure Agreements: Please Do Not Try This at Home

 /  Legal  / 
United States companies all too often make the mistake of trying to protect their intellectual property from China by using a U.S. style non-disclosure agreement (NDA). These agreements do not work for China. Chinese companies know this and so they willingly sign them. Read More

China Business Scam, Part 2: The Fake Joint Venture

 /  Legal  / 
This part 2 post is on what we call the fake China Joint Venture, and it is an oldy but a goody and — dare I say it — one of my favorites. Our China lawyers have seen this one quite often and as far as I know, it has always involved an American company, which I fear says something about American naïveté. Read More

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