CHINA

Website continues to sell theses despite complaints

The authors who accused a website of selling their dissertations against their consent cannot demand the removal of the theses from the platform as, according to intellectual property experts, the sale does not constitute copyright infringement, writes Deng Xiaoci for Global Times.

According to a report from news portal thepaper.cn, there are some 4,000 items tagged as ‘doctoral dissertations’ for sale on kongfz.com, a second-hand book platform, which come from dozens of elite Chinese universities including Tsinghua University, Peking University and Fudan University. The dissertations are priced from CNY5 to CNY1,000 (US$0.73 to US$145) by different sellers on the website.

When the author hands in the dissertation to university faculties for reviews, or the graduate donates the copies to the libraries or gifts these copies to friends, the writers have already executed their publication rights, Yao Huanqing, a professor from the Law School of the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times. If the sellers on the kongfz.com got these copies from the above-mentioned sources, then the copies cannot be considered as pirated, said Yao.
Full report on the Global Times site