9 questions on this page: Do you need to register? · How to register, how long, how much · Term and ownership · Enforcement. The answers come from verified content elsewhere on this site; the link at the end of each answer takes you to the original page for context. For statutory wording and official fees, the official documents prevail.
No. Copyright arises automatically the moment a work is created, and registration is voluntary—Article 2 of the Interim Measures for the Voluntary Registration of Works states expressly that “whether or not a work is registered, the copyright lawfully acquired by the author or other copyright owner is unaffected.”
Registration is still well worth doing: Article 12 of the Copyright Law (2020 amendment) provides that an author or other copyright owner “may register the work with a registration body recognized by the national copyright authority,” and the certificate is prima facie evidence of title—when you complain to an e-commerce platform, apply for customs recordal, pledge the right for financing or put evidence before a court, it is the first thing the other side and the platform ask to see. For software, Article 7 of the Regulations on the Protection of Computer Software says the same: “the registration certificate issued by the software registration body is prima facie evidence of the registered particulars.”
Source: Copyright Law, Article 12 (National Copyright Administration); Interim Measures for the Voluntary Registration of Works, Article 2 (gov.cn); Regulations on the Protection of Computer Software, Article 7 (State Council database of administrative regulations).
Yes. Article 2 of the Copyright Law: works of foreigners and stateless persons “enjoy copyright under agreements concluded between China and the country to which the author belongs or in which the author habitually resides, or under international treaties to which both are party, and that copyright is protected by this Law”—China and its main trading partners are all parties to the Berne Convention, so copyright that arises in your own country is automatically protected in China, with no need to register here first. The position for software is the same under Article 5 of the Regulations on the Protection of Computer Software.
In practice we still recommend that a foreign owner obtain a registration before enforcing in China: Article 3 of the Interim Measures for the Voluntary Registration of Works assigns registration of works belonging to copyright owners “from abroad and from the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao” to the National Copyright Administration, which today handles them through the online system of the Copyright Protection Center of China.
Source: Copyright Law, Article 2; Regulations on the Protection of Computer Software, Article 5; Interim Measures for the Voluntary Registration of Works, Article 3.
Everything is done online, through the copyright registration system on the website of the Copyright Protection Center of China. Its Application Guidelines state: “the registration body completes the matter within 25 working days of accepting the application”; where corrections are required, they must be filed within 30 days of receiving the correction notice, failing which the application is treated as withdrawn.
The core documents are proof of identity, evidence showing ownership of the work (a specimen, the manuscript or a photocopy of the cover and copyright page, for example) and the work registration form (Article 8 of the Interim Measures for the Voluntary Registration of Works). When we handle the filing we check the type of work and the attribution first, so that the application is not returned because the named author does not match.
Source: Copyright Protection Center of China — Application Guidelines; Interim Measures for the Voluntary Registration of Works, Article 8.
Yes. Fees are charged per work under the Schedule of Fees for Voluntary Copyright Registration published by the Copyright Protection Center of China (revised 26 October 2018). For common works—text, art and photographic works—the fee runs to a few hundred CNY each, with film and television works higher; registration of a change is charged at a set proportion of the original rate. The exact amounts are those on the fee schedule page of the Center’s website; when we quote, we list the official fee and our service fee separately.
Source: Copyright Protection Center of China — Schedule of Fees.
Documents: the registration application form, the identifying materials for the software and the supporting documents (Article 9 of the Measures for the Registration of Computer Software Copyright). The general rule for the identifying materials is “the first and last 30 consecutive pages of the source code and of any one item of documentation”; if the whole program and documentation come to less than 60 pages, all of it is filed. Each page of source code must carry at least 50 lines and each page of documentation at least 30 lines (Article 10). Where trade secrets are involved you may opt for “exceptional deposit” and cover the confidential parts with wide black diagonal lines, provided that no more than 50% of the source code deposited is covered (Article 12).
Timing: the Copyright Protection Center of China “completes its examination within 60 days of the date of acceptance” (Article 20); corrections must be filed within 30 days, failing which the application is treated as withdrawn (Article 22).
Cost: the official fee for software copyright registration was abolished with effect from 1 April 2017 (the Ministry of Finance Notice on Cleaning Up and Standardizing a Number of Administrative Charges, Cai Shui [2017] No. 20, 财税〔2017〕20号; the Copyright Protection Center of China issued its notice of abolition on that basis)—so there is now only the agency’s service fee, and no official fee.
Source: Measures for the Registration of Computer Software Copyright, Articles 9, 10, 12, 20 and 22 (National Copyright Administration); Cai Shui [2017] No. 20, 财税〔2017〕20号.
Article 23 of the Copyright Law: for a work by a natural person, the right of publication and the economic rights last for the author’s life and 50 years after death, expiring on 31 December of the 50th year after death; for a work of a legal person or an unincorporated organization (and for a work made in the course of employment whose copyright belongs to the employer) the term is 50 years, expiring on 31 December of the 50th year after first publication, except that a work not published within 50 years of its creation is no longer protected. The rights of authorship, of revision and of integrity are not subject to any time limit (Article 22).
Software follows the same rules: under Article 14 of the Regulations on the Protection of Computer Software, the term is the life of the natural person plus 50 years after death; for a legal person or other organization it is 50 years, expiring on 31 December of the 50th year after first publication, and software not published within 50 years of completion is no longer protected.
Source: Copyright Law, Articles 22 and 23; Regulations on the Protection of Computer Software, Article 14.
Software developed by an employee during employment: it belongs to the employer if it falls within one of the three situations in Article 13 of the Regulations on the Protection of Computer Software—it was developed to meet a development objective expressly assigned in the employee’s job; it is a foreseeable or natural result of carrying out that job; or it was developed mainly using the employer’s material and technical resources, such as its funds, dedicated equipment or undisclosed proprietary information.
Works created by an outside team on commission: Article 19 of the Copyright Law—ownership “is agreed between the commissioning party and the commissioned party by contract,” and where the contract makes no express agreement, or where no contract was concluded, the copyright belongs to the commissioned party. In other words, without a written agreement the logo, promotional video or software you paid to have made stays in the supplier’s hands. Settle the copyright clause in the commissioning contract before you pay.
Source: Regulations on the Protection of Computer Software, Article 13; Copyright Law, Article 19.
Article 54 of the Copyright Law: damages are assessed on the owner’s actual loss or the infringer’s unlawful gains; where those are hard to calculate, the royalty for the right may be used as a reference; and where the infringement is willful and the circumstances serious, punitive damages of between one and five times that amount may be awarded. Where all three are hard to calculate, the court awards statutory damages of between CNY 500 and CNY 5 million according to the circumstances, and the award must also cover the reasonable costs the owner incurred to stop the infringement.
What you actually recover depends on the evidence: the registration certificate proves title, while a notarized purchase, platform back-end data and the other side’s sales records prove the infringement and its scale. Evidence first, claim second.
Source: Copyright Law, Article 54.
The IP complaint channels of the major e-commerce platforms, customs IP recordal and most financing-pledge situations all require proof of ownership first, and the copyright registration certificate is the most direct document you can produce. It is not the source of the right—the right arose when the work was created—but it turns “this is mine” into a document issued by a third party, carrying a registration number that can be checked, so the other side and the platform can verify it on the spot.
One caution: the registration authority carries out a formality examination only, and a registration may be revoked if it is later found not to match the facts or to duplicate an existing one (Article 6 of the Interim Measures for the Voluntary Registration of Works), so the author, the date of completion and the date of publication in your application must match reality.
Source: Interim Measures for the Voluntary Registration of Works, Article 6; Copyright Law, Article 12.
