To be, or not to be? Copyright general monitoring dilemma of online hosting audio-visual platforms in China

Abstract

In China, a hosting audio-visual platform does not bear a copyright general monitoring obligation. It bears a public law obligation to monitor content proactively and constantly to safeguard the governance objective of cybersecurity. Little literature has discovered that Chinese case law has shown a risk that this public law obligation can impose an actual copyright general monitoring obligation upon platforms. The crux lies in that the public law obligation weakens the rationale of the copyright no monitoring obligation that a platform cannot access and assess each piece of work proactively. Copyright general monitoring seems to be workable as a platform is given such an opportunity to access and evaluate each content upon the fulfillment of the public law obligation. It, however, is unjustifiable to create this copyright law obligation by transferring it from the public law obligation, as copyright monitoring is much more complicated and costly within China's online environment. Access to content does not necessarily indicate a platform's ability to figure out content's copyright authorization status. China should retain adopting the no copyright general monitoring obligation even considering that the public law obligation has been contextually emphasized as a mandatory obligation to platforms.