A contentious clause that musicians say will violate their intellectual property rights and undermine creativity has been deleted in an official about-face over a controversial amendment to the Copyright Law.
The National Copyright Administration (NCA) made the revised amendment public on Friday and submitted it for public consultation until the end of the month. Among other revisions, the controversial 'Article 46' was dropped.
Under the article, those who did not hold the copyright of a recording would have been allowed to circumvent copyright holders after just three months of the recording being released, as long as permission was obtained by the National Copyright Bureau.
The copyright owners would still have been paid for the use of a recording, but they would not have been able to prohibit its use, as the amendment had removed a key sentence stating that 'no work can be used if the copyright owner refuses permission'.
Payment for use of recordings would have come through the Music Copyright Society of China, a non-profit organisation representing copyright holders.
Many mainland musicians decried the March 31 amendment to the 2001 Copyright Law, warning that it could have dealt a fatal blow to an industry that has been hit hard by rampant piracy.
They also said it undermined artists' creativity by giving bureaucrats and recording studios too much power over other people's works.
