Red Star News:
In recent years, online live broadcasting has brought new development opportunities for e-commerce and WeChat business. The management of counterfeit and shoddy goods on e-commerce platforms and WeChat stores has captured people's attention. My question is, what new measures have been taken over the past year in the management of e-commerce, livestream shopping and WeChat business? How can consumers protect their rights when they purchase fake and shoddy goods from livestreams and in online stores?
Gan Lin:
Thank you for your question. I'll answer this one. This issue has attracted much attention. With the rapid development of information technology, infringement and counterfeiting are characterized by such features as an integration of online and offline, organized criminal behavior, and refined division of production and marketing. This has made it increasingly difficult to deal with infringement and counterfeiting. On one hand, laws and regulations need to be improved. On the other, there needs to be innovation in the methods of supervision, such as using internet to manage online platforms to enhance the efficacy of enforcement.
In terms of managing infringements and counterfeiting online, the market regulation authorities have taken a series of effective measures. As I just introduced, the "2020 Sword Net" campaign is a multi-department effort aimed at cracking down on online sales of infringing, counterfeit and shoddy goods, unfair competition, and other illegal activities. It has also produced significant results, with nearly 20,000 cases having been investigated and dealt with. Of course, there are more complaints and informants in this respect. The "Iron Fist" action of IPR enforcement also coordinated both online and offline efforts, with 39,000 cases of trademark infringement and patent counterfeiting being investigated and handled. At the same time, we have also formulated the Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Online Transactions, which will come into force in a few days, on May 1. The Measures makes special provisions for operators of online live broadcast trading of goods. It also makes clear that if online service providers, such as social networks and live broadcasters, provide trading platform services such as online stores, commodity browsing, order generation and online payment for operators, they should fulfill the obligations of online trading platform operators in accordance with the law.
In a word, there is no place online that is outside the law, and the law must be obeyed both online and offline. Operators who carry out online trading activities using such online trading platform services should also fulfill the obligations of operators on the platform in accordance with the law. Platforms have their responsibilities and operators have their obligations, and both must abide by the law.
The management of infringement and counterfeiting online has always been an important part of our "Double Action" work, which has been included in the key tasks of the "Double Action" work for many years, and its implementation has been promoted as a key deployment. All regions and departments are also actively promoting the implementation. Both the "Sword Net" and the "Blue Net" campaigns have achieved positive results. Influenced by the epidemic, live broadcasting e-commerce providers have entered the era of nationwide live broadcasting, so many departments have now also issued the Administrative Measures for Network Livestream Marketing (Trial). Going forward, including livestream marketing, all subjects of online live broadcasts, such as "people, goods and market," "those in front of and behind the camera," as well as "various elements online and offline," should all be included in the scope of supervision. This requires us to step up efforts and take various measures. You will be able to see the results of further enforcement in the future. Thank you.
