This is a bilingual post. The Chinese version is following the English.
这是一篇双语日志，中文部分在后面。

FaTianXia[dot]com (closed now) impressed me when I saw it at the first sight by its significant technological progress comparing to other Chinese online legal communities. Its founder, KaKaYu had obviously tried his best to design a user-friendly and multifunctional Web 2.0 style interface. I blogged it with joy immediately.

Perhaps because of the "BBS culture" in Chinese Internet sphere, or because of the tendency of grand narrative in Chinese legal blogosphere (this tendency has been changing significantly in recent two years), the content in FaTianXia was not as diverse as its technological functions. However, the defects cannot obscure the virtues. It is still one of the best non-profit grass-roots legal communities in China, at least in my view.

In fact, because I have my own independent BLawgDog.com, so I actually was not an active user of FaTianXia. I just established a mirro site of BLawgDog at FaTianXia, and occationally uploaded my posts together with their URLs at BLawgDog to lure the eyeballs to my own site. For a UGC (User-generated Content) site, criticising it but with almost zero contribution, is more or less an unkind behavior. 

Last December, FaTianXia was closed.  I don't know the exact reason, so I cannot say anything on it.  What I can say currently is: I find a new Web 2.0 style Chinese legal site: YaDian (means Athens Academe in English). It might be the best non-profit grass-roots online legal communities in China, at least in my view.

　　从见到法天下的第一天起，我就被它深深吸引。相比其它中文法律社区网站，它在技术理念上大大进步。其主办者卡卡鱼从一开始就尽力将其打造成为一个界面友好、功能丰富的Web2.0网站。为此我还兴奋地专门写过一篇日志。

　　也许是因为中文网络环境中的“BBS文化”，也可能是因为中文法律博客圈的宏大叙事倾向（近两年有非常大的改观），法天下中的内容还是比较平面化和单一化。但瑕不掩瑜，在我看来，它仍然是中国最好的非营利性草根法律社区之一。

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Tags: 法律博客法律博客 BlawgBlawg EnEn

DONG Hao, “Taxation Issues in the E-commerce”, in LI Zuming (ed.), E-commerce Law, Beijing: University of International Business and Economics Press (2009), 19,000 words;

Introduction:

The E-commerce should not escape itself from the taxation. However, the troditional tax law and taxation policies would not cope with the new challenges including the identification of the taxpayer, the jurisdiction issues, the "new" objects of taxation, etc. This chapter firstly analyzed the impacts of the online commerce to the traditional tax law. Then it introduced the achievements either in the academia or in the legislations in various countries. China's relevant taxation policies and the future development are discussed in the third section of this chapter. To make this book more practical,  although the structure of the chapter can be divided to the above three parts, the whole chapter always focuses on the possible dilemma as well as the solution in the context of Chinese taxation system.

书章：电子商务中的税收问题

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Tags: e-commercee-commerce TaxationTaxation 电子商务法电子商务法 税收税收 EnEn

After more than thirty years legal march, the Chinese legal system has been more and more complicated (although still immature and full of conflicts), and it is the time to review it as an integrated system but not only a target of criticism.

For instance, the research to the text of Chinese legislation may frequently meet a paradox: why the standards in Chinese law are not enforced in practice? The researchers may attribute to the Confucian culture, "Asian Value" and the corruption (or arbitrariness) of authoritarian regime, etc. It seems the violation of human rights, the censorship of Chinese Internet and the widespread piracy in Chinese copyright market were normality, or that would not be China. However, these not-wrong discoveries are mostly not able to provide solutions. A combination of positive research to Chinese law and the observation to either the existing reform within the regime or the potential trends in the society, as what I am trying in my proposed research, may make the solutions nearer.

Tags: 法治法治 研究研究 researchresearch EnEn

Promoting and Protecting Human Rights in Transitional Cultures:
An Empirical Case Study in Minority Regions (Excerpt)

DONG Hao

The article includes six sections. Only the Introduction and an excerpt of Part I and Part II are provided here. The Chinese full-text was published at Achieves for Legal Philosophy and Sociology of Law, Vol. 7, 2004, Beijing, 18,000 words in Chinese.

Click here for the Chinese Full-text (PDF)

Abstract:

This article reviews the dilemma on the notion of “culture” in current human rights research with seven cases related to the ethnic cultures. Associated with the analysis of cultural relativism and the universalism of human rights, the following conclusions have been made: (1) culture itself is a dynamic phenomenon which will produce significant influence on people’s rights in reality; (2) the transformation of specific ethnic culture could be in accordance with the international human rights standard by occasion, at the same time, it also constitute the obstacles to the realization of those human rights; (3) National ideology can influence the transformation of certain culture; (4) through this influence, it is possible that the traditional ethnic culture can absorb the values of modern human rights ideas; (5) there’s no hurdle between ethnic culture protection and human rights protection; (6) the culture transformation is based on its origins and basis no matter how the national ideology want to impose the impacts; (7)a precondition of influencing the ethnic culture through national intervention is to protect the existing cultures as well as its autonomy and free development; (8) the so-called culture protection could produce further influence on the transformation of the protected culture.

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Tags: cultureculture humanhuman rightright EnEn

 Orphan Works in the Context of Chinese Copyright Law:
A Comparative Research

DONG Hao

Abstract: "Orphan Works" means works whose copyright (if not expired) owners can hardly be located, hence the users may not exploit the works lawfully with the licenses issued by right owners. Discussions to this topic in the U.S. and Britain have been raised for years, and the Bills for orphan Works have been introduced to the U.S. congress several times. The dilemma of orphan works and abandon softwares also exists in the context of Chinese copyright system, and this phenomena may be more widespread because the history of Chinese copyright law in the recent 100 years are inconsistent, unsteady and intermittent. Furthermore, the current Chinese copyright system is of not mature enough. It not merely lacks solutions for  the orphan work problem, but also exists unreasonable provisions that may worsen it. Four factor should be considered when one is about to solve the problem: (1) comply with the three-step test; (2) based on existing legal system of the country; (3) minimize the cost of both right owners and users; (4) guarantee the predictability of the benifits and the obligations. Based on these four premises, this article critically reviewed the solutions in the U.S., Canada and Japan,  and then proposed a set of multi-method and integrated suggestion that suit to the features of Chinese copyright regime.

Keywords: 
orphan Work, statutory licence, compulsory licence, authorship, public domain

The paper (in Chinese, 21,000 words) has been accomplished in Nov. 2006, and it is continuously updating before the formal publication. If you need it, please conatct the author.

论著作权法中的孤儿作品问题董皓：一项基于比较法视角下的研究（摘要）

董皓

[摘要] “孤儿作品”是指因难以找到权利人而无法取得使用授权的作品。美国《2006孤儿作品法案》已被提交国会讨论。孤儿作品现象在中国同样存在且可能更为普遍，现行中国著作权法律体系不但没有为该问题的解决提供足够的制度资源，而且还存在着不合理的规则。在选择孤儿作品问题的治理方案时应考虑四个方面的因素，以它们为评价标准，综合各种解决模式的优长，结合中国体制的特点后，方可形成一套多模式并用的、中国的孤儿作品法律治理方案。

[关键词] 孤儿作品、法定许可、强制许可、作者、著作权

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Tags: OrphanOrphan WorkWork statutorystatutory licencelicence compulsorycompulsory licencelicence authorshipauthorship PublicPublic DomainDomain EnEn

Competition Policy and Updating Vehicles for the Delivery of Legal Services: The New South Wales Experience and Lessons for Hong Kong

John BURKE* & Hao DONG**

Accepted by SSCI Journal: Asian and Pacific Law Review

Abstract: Competition policy has been applied to the legal profession in NSW for over a decade. The introduction of a broad reaching competition law to Hong Kong is currently being considered there. This article will review two key aspects of competition policy in NSW, the introduction of incorporated legal practices (‘ILPs’) and multi-disciplinary legal practices (‘MDPs’). In particular, it will explore the degree to which these changes have altered the traditional professional model of legal practice in NSW and the benefits and costs of these effects. These lessons are relevant to legal profession in Hong Kong because proposals in a public consultation paper issued by the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau on 6 May 2008 envisage that competition policy would apply prima facie to all business models. Furthermore, existing (but dormant) legislation permitting ILPs and recommendations to allow MDPs make these changes to the landscape of legal practice a real possibility. This article will conclude that such changes should be viewed with caution in Hong Kong and perhaps other solutions sought to improve the efficiency and productivity of the legal system and access to justice in that jurisdiction.

 
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* Teaching Fellow, City University of Hong Kong. BA (Macquarie University), Dip. Law (SAB), LLM (UTS), Graduate Certificate in University Teaching and Learning (Charles Sturt University).
** Lecturer in Yunnan University (PRC), PhD Candidate in City University of Hong Kong. The authors would also like to thank Professor Christopher Roper and Professor Gino Dal Pont’s careful proof reading, as well as very helpful insights provided by Michael Sandor on the current law of Hong Kong, who refereed this article.

Tags: competitioncompetition lawyerlawyer 律师律师 EnEn

Can the Moral Right be Transferred and Waived?
A Positive Research to the Chinese Copyright Law

Tags: 署名权署名权 发表权发表权 修改权修改权 保护作品完整权保护作品完整权 公共领域公共领域

　　《著作权限制制度比较研究》[注：点书名到卓越网购买]的作者王清老师给我留言如下： 

　　虚拟服务器的出租方属于提供信息存储空间的网络服务提供者应该没有疑问，但是，他们如何根据《信息网络传播权保护条例》第22条之（一）来“明确标示该信息存储空间是为服务对象所提供”？因为，这种情况下，网络服务提供者没有对外的网站，而租用者网站是不可能自己标示。在该条规定的必须同时满足五种条件下，似乎该累提供者难以适用该条免责。感觉该条仅针对类似土豆网的视频网站所规定。

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Tags: 安全港安全港 侵权侵权 著作权著作权 帮助侵权帮助侵权 共同侵权共同侵权