Pay Method for Statutory License in Teaching Materials to be issued

October 1, 2009

It has been reported that a Pay Method for Statutory License in Teaching Materials is expected to be issued within the year.

According to relevant provisions, the fragments of published works or short text works, musical or single art works and photographic works in the teaching materials of the nine-year compulsory education and national education planning are all considered as statutory license, which means they can be used without the authors’ permission. But the compiling and publishing organizations should pay remunerations to the author in accordance with the standards set by the National Copyright Administration, specify the names of the author and works, and shall not infringe the copyright owner of other rights enjoyed by law.

The National Copyright Administration published the draft of the Pay Method for Statutory License in Teaching Materials in 2002, but most of the publishers did not pay authors based on the claim that there were no formal pay standards for teaching materials. In response to this situation, the NCA launched the research work on the Pay Method for Statutory License in Teaching Materials and recently held three research symposiums in Beijing, the east and the west regions of China with compiling and publishing organizations and some authors of the teaching materials, in order to gather the opinions of the authors and publishers. Meanwhile, the NCA has specifically issued a document that, as the collective management organization of the copyrights of written works, the Copyright Society of Chinese Characters is responsible for the receiving and transferring of the statutory license copyright royalties of newspapers reproduced and text works in teaching materials. The guide is expected to be issued this year. It should not be long until the authors are able to obtain legal remuneration from the publishing of teaching materials.