• Ring the Bell: A 65 minutes Remix Movie created totally in the WOW Game

This movie was made by a few Chinese WOW players. The story is well edited and all the episodes are captured from te WOW game. In this remix movie, the story of the dispute between two Chinese governmental departments on the licensing of the WOW and the the players’ rebellion of the electrotherapeutics to the “net-addiction” are narrated perfectly. The controversial electrotherapeutics was invented by a Chinese psychiatrist and supported by some parents. This is a representative work of Remix by grass-roots Chinese netizens. And it is released with CC-By-NC-SA. Watch it at here (I do wish someone may add English subtitles to it).

• Statistics and Analysis to National Examination for Patent Agent (1998-2009)

This post is contributed by Mr. Xuhui Chen, a new co-author of BLawgDog and a patent lawyer in China. The essay provides the passing rates of each year’s examination and other detailed analysis.

• China IP Weekly Newsletter (17 Jan 2010)

In this issue edited by Luckie Hong, the following news are included: (1) two guys are prosecuted for oporating unauthorized online-game sever of “Audition Dance Battle Online”; (2) A Beijing court ruled that funshion.com infringed copyright by providing downloading; (3) The Measures of payment of the textbooks’ royalties and the Measure of Protection of the Folklores are drafting; (4) Sany group, a major construction machinery producer wins a litigation on its trademark against the figure of “Benz”; (5) Tianjin high technology industry park promulgated a regulation encouraging the endevor of establishing well-known brands; (6) The series cases on the trademark “世界风SHIJIEFENG” was settled by the parties; (7) XGK, a company in Henan province, wins a lawsuit against State Intellectual Property Bureau for its decision of invalitation of the ZL8910393.8 patent; (8) powerdekor, a mojor producer of wood flooring in China, was involved in a patent law suit on its laminate flooring product; (9) Shanghai encourages the application of foreign patent with the maximum of 90,000 RMB financial aid.

• The Story of a Chain Resturant

This post is originally written in English. Click here.

• Google’s Angry, Sacrifice and the Accelerated Splitting Internet

This post is translated and extended in English, please click here for the English version.

• A notice by CNNIC about stop resolving the not “recorded” domain names

This is a copy of the CNNIC’s notice requesting ISPs stopping to resolve the domain name which are not recorded in Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s website registration/licensing system.

• News on the Proposals for strengthening copyright protection in digital environment in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong government proposed a new version of the Proposals for Strengthening Copyright Protection in the Digital Environment. Xie Lin and Donnie co-authored this short post, which briefly introduced the content of the new proposals.

• China IP Weekly Newsletter (10 Jan 2010)

In this issue edited by Luckie Hong, the following news are included: (1) Google apologized openly for the first time in the copyright dispute between Google and Chinese authors; (2) A US software firm sues China for 2.2 billion dollars for using its copyrighted software in the Green Dam; (3) 50% increase of the copyright registration in China, 2009; (4) Hanwang, a Chinese company finally agree to sell the “iPhone” trademark to Apple; (5) Hengyuanxiang, a major Chinese woolen provider, was trapped in a trademark dispute on the “figure of a Sheep”; (6) the tademark of “Pierre Cardin” was finally selled to a Chinese company for 37 million euro; (7) A Fujian firm won IP lawsuit against FKK, a Japanese chemical giant; (8) A patent dispute about Mercury-free batteries falls into a vicious cycle; (9) RichtekTechnology, a Taiwan firm, sued AMD and other 5 US companies for patent infringement

• A brief note to the attorney-client privilege and the witness privilege

• Copyright Committee of the Internet Society of China was established on 30 Dec

• A US software firm sues China for 2.2 billion dollars for using its copyrighted software in the Green Dam

• China IP Weekly Newsletter (2 Dec. 2009)

In this issue edited by Luckie Hong, the following news are included: (1) Zhejiang Higher Court promulgated a guide for hearing the online copyright disputes; (2) A case on the popular book “Mawen’s War” was ruled in Nanjing; (3) The appealing case on the copyright of electronic navigation map in China (the first one in China) was ruled by Guangdong Higher Court; (4) the exposure draft of the new trademark law was submitted to the Legal Affairs Office of the State Council; (5) Google sent a lawyer’s letter to an individula who is raising an objection to the trademark of Google’s Chinese name Guge (谷歌); (6) Beijing No.1 Intermediate people’s Court affirmed the validity of Judger Group’s (a Zhejiang-based garment enterprise) trademark of GEORGE and its figures; (7) The “Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Patent Infringement Dispute Cases” was promulgated by the Supreme People’s Court; (8) the new IMPLEMENTING REGULATIONS OF THE PATENT LAW OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA was passed by the State Council on 30 Dec. 2009; (9) Unilin loses its acts against patent infringing products of Yekalon in Germany.

• Celebrate the Public Domain Day

This post firstly briefed Donnie’s definition of “Public Domain” in the context of Chinese copyright law in his PhD dissertation at China University of Political Science, then introduced the idea of “public domain day” on each January 1st for at this day, many works will fall into the public domain every year. Lastly, the post discussed some famous/interesting Chinese works that will be fall into the public domain since Jan. 1st, 2009.

• BLawgDog’s 2009 Summing-up

In 2009, 170 entries are published at BLawgDog (including 38 English ones). Among them, Donnie contributed about 120 posts, other co-authors contributed about 40 ones. Then this article highlighted a few interesting posts during the year.

• A quick survey: Chinese twitters, are you out of the GFW or in the GFW?

I annouced a very quick survey to Chinese twitter users: whether they are living abroad or inside of the GFW. 88.46% responed they stay in China. For the question “if you live inside of the GFW, are you use twitter frequently”, 70.21% said yes they are. For the question “if you live outside of the GFW, after going back to China, will you use twitter frequently”, 52.94% said yes, but 23.53% said he/she will use twitter only when she/he is out of GFW. For the question “Ask 5 of your QQ buddies randomly, how many of them are using twitter.” 53.85% of the respondent said none of their 5 QQ buddies is using twitter, and only 1.92% said all of the 5 QQ buddies are using twitter too.

• China IP Weekly Newsletter (27 Dec. 2009)

Writen and edited by Luckie Hong, a co-author of BlawgDog, reporting the latest news in IP Law. This issue includes: (1) the promulgation of China’s new Tort Law, in which the ISP’s liability was eventually coded in a questionable way; (2) China association of literature copyright said Google has illegally scanned over 80,000 Chinese books; (3) Taiyuan intermediate peoples court in Shanxi Province issued a warrant of seizure to a karaoke bar for copyright infringement, which is the first time on mainland China; (4) the National Trademark Review and Adjudication Board petitioned to the Supreme Court for the Beijing Court’s rulling of its decision on the “Daohuaxiang” trademark; (5) the dispute of the trademark of *ST Sanlian (SH.600898) will be ruled soon; (6) JNJ (Johnson & Johnson) lost the case on the “Caile” trademark in China; (7) A Newyork listed Shenzhen company was sued for a patent infringement, the damages claimed by the plaintiff was 175 million RMB; (8) Aigo and Netac settled the patent dispute on USB flash drivers; (9) Up to 7 Dec. 2009, the annual number of patent granting is 3007,636.

• The definition of “use” in China’s Copyright Law

This essay reviews the usage of the term “use” in China’s current Copyright Law, and find its definition is hightly confusional, which leads the uncertainty “individul use” in the list of limitations to the copyright in Art. 22 of the Copyright Law.

• Warrant of Seizure for copyright infringement?

This post questioned the legitimacy of issuing a warrant of seizure to Karaoke bars for the reason of copyright infringement, which was happened in Taiyuan, the capital city of Shanxi Province.

As Google’s abrupt leaving from China, the splitting of the Internet seems faster and faster. I think the following ten websites can lead observers understanding the Chinese Internet. All of them survived China’s censorship, and are developing rapidly. Compare to the websites that has been blocked (that I listed on Wednesday here), they are the real main stream for the over 400 million Chinese netizens.

First of all, They are all in Chinese, and seldom provide multi-language service. This might be the obstacle for the English speaking researchers, but it can also be regarded as the first typical character of Chinese website – not because of the censorship, but because of the population. The formation of a separate “Sub-internet” needs a big enough population.

There are many great blogs and websites reporting Chinese Internet (Cinternet hereinafter), such as Danwei, Shanghainist, Gokunming, etc. But if one wants to understand the trend of Cinternet, the following websites, as well as a little Chinese, plus some translation tools are necessary.

In my view, when we are talking about the Cinternet, the targets should be the “plain” websites, not those pioneer ones. Each of the following websites is crowded with millions of users, and all of them survived the censorship and/or self-censorship. The core/column of the Cinternet should be based on them but not those obviously unsurvivable ones. For example, a research to Chinese bloggers should focus on not only the independent or even blocked bloggers, but also the mainstream in those highly controlled blog services.

1. http://www.QQ.com (Alexa China 2; world 11; on Jan 15th 2010, the same below)
The top website in China according to Alexa in Jan. 2010. And it has almost all kinds of web application including blog (blog.qq.com), game (qqgame.qq.com), news, sns (qzone.qq.com), search engine (soso.com), micro-blog, C2C (www.paipai.com), and most importantly, Instant Message (im.QQ.com). Almost each Chinese netizen has a QQ number. the number of the accounts has exceeded 900 million in 2007, and the active users were over 400 millions in 2008. Then they only publish the number of  concurrent online users – this number exceeds 80 millions on Oct. 10th 2009, and exceeded 90 millions two months later.

This is a diagram of the concurrent online users of QQ on 5 December 2009. The communication among them are not cacluated by the Alexa.

2. http://Baidu.com (Alexa China 1; world 8)
Baidu is a search engine service provider. Just like Google, it provides many other services like blog (hi.baidu.com). However, the core of baidu is still the web search. It enforces strict artificial intervention to the search result. However, most of Chinese users still take baidu as their first choice. One of the reasons is: Chinese users are more familiar to Baidu’s way of locating Chinese knowledge.

3. http://www.KaiXin001.com/ (Alexa China: 9; world: 56)
A unique SNS different from facebook style, grow rapidly in last two years. 60 Million users up to December 2009 (15 million active users per day). The aim of 2010 is over 100 million. A competitor of KaiXin001 is RenRen.com (Alexa China: 14; world 93). RenRen is the ealiest SNS in China, and it duplicated Facebook’s mode. However, that approach can not compete kaixin001 on the matters of authenticity and the user stickiness.

4. http://DouBan.com  (Alexa China: 24; world: 178)
The unique website that I cannot find the similiar website in English web sphere. It launched an English version but suspended. Some reported that its accounts exceeded 30 million by the end of Dec. 2009 (the number of account by Sept. 2009 was just 10 million). The founder of this website denied it is a SNS. Douban is the most successful Chinese Web 2.0 website. It is a very typical UGC website that the users generate almost all contents in the website. Without the interfere of the government, douban may be one of the promising websites in the ahead 5 years.

5. http://taobao.com (Alexa China: 5; world: 24)
The famous C2C or B2C E-commerce website, together with alipay.com (the online payment leader in China – Alexa China: 32; world: 267) and alibaba (B2B website – Alexa China: 25; world: 109), consist the giant of the E-commerce in China.

6. http://www.tianya.cn (Alexa China: 13; world: 89)
The most crowded Chinese BBS community in the world. With the traditional form of web forum, this website focuses and enlarge hottest news and topics every day. For those focused threads, it is very easy to have more than 100 thousands replies in one day.

7. http://Xunlei.com (Alexa China: 21; world: 129)
Based on its downloading software (Xunlei), Xunlei become the king of the dowloading in China. It declares only providing copyright-free resources, while since Xunlei software is a searchable, unified format “P2SP” software, one may find many copyright-doubtable resources on it. However, forget the copyright, Xunlei is very efficient and can be one of the successful practicers of the “cloud” concept.

8. http://blog.sina.com.cn (Alexa China:4, world:16, as for sina.com.cn)
Sina has been among the top ten Chinese websites for a decade. It is the traditional portal style. Checking the Internet archive of Sina ten years ago here, you will find that the style of the first page of sina had not changed so much. It is a typical obedient private owned website that follows the orders of the regime. As for the future of the Cinternet, observers are suggested to watch sina’s blog channel and the micro-blog channel (t.sina.com.cn).

9. http://youdao.com (Alexa China:42, world:282)
Youdao is the search engine developed by Netease (163.com – Alexa China:7, world:27). It seems paid more attention to the web 2.0 applications and the relevant page arrangement. It has the personalized first page like iGoogle. Netease has other products like 126.com E-mail service (Alexa China:27, world:195). As an old website rise together with sina and sohu.com (Alexa China:8, world:43), Netease seems more willing to embrace the web 2.0. It is the only one opens the free API for the 3rd developers among the four biggest portal sites (QQ, sina, sohu and 163) in China.

10. http://www.hao123.com (Alexa China:23, world:169)
Hao123 is a simple static 1.0 style html page aggregated links of many websites. For geeks, it is stupid and like an antique, but it always stands at the top 30 websites of China. It is the home page of millions of browsers. It was acquired by Baidu in 2006. Baidu keeps it on the original way, even doesn’t make it more customizable.

These websites including the 2.0 oriented sites (douban, youdao) and very static web 1.0 homepage (hao123). While in my view, the main stream of the Cinternet is unique and can not be categorized with Web 1.0/2.0 . Here are the features that I roughly summarized at the current stage.

(1) Accepting the 2.0 ideas, but making the user generated contents controllable. The latest example is t.sina.com.cn, it is launched in October and now become the top one among the micro-blog (as the matter of users’ number) services.

(2) Complying with Chinese culture – I am not saying censorship/dictatorship, but the culture. A typical example can be the comparision between reren.com and kaixin001.com.

(3) One website provides integrated services, but very few websites provide open API.

(4) IM driven. Other than the E-mail driven culture in English cyberspace, the Cinternet is and will still be an IM driven culture. People contact with QQ numbers everywhere. Besides QQ, Taobao has its IM too, and has made being the hub of all the Taobao’s e-commerce applications; sina, baidu, netease and China-Mobile all provide their IM services, but non of them are inter-communicable.

This is just a simple illustration. There must be more features. Here I am actually discussing the appropriate approach to stuy the Chinese web sphere.

There is a big chain restaurant company who named itself Eatool. Based in Amilina (a country allowing people eat almost everything except small chicken), Eatool provides delicious meats, including pork, beef and adult chicken. At the same time, it also sells dishware and other stuffs in each of its restaurants.
I.
Few years ago, Eatool opened a new restaurant in Cinet, a country where the king forbid selling pork, as well as chicken.
Personally, Eatool’s boss loves pork, but he knows that selling pork in their Cinet restaurant means shut down the business including the dishware. So they hired Cinet people run the restaurant in Cinet, and restricted themselves from selling pork. At the same time, Eatool sells dishware to Cinetizens.
In Amilina, many gourmets criticized Eatool for years: “Hey, pork is delicious. You should provide pork in Cinet. People in Cinet need pork!”
In the mean time, some people in Cinet also claimed: “Hey, we love pork. Why Eatool, the leader of the world restaurants, compromise to the evil regulation of forbidding pork?”
More profoundly, some thinkers either in Cinet or in Amilina said: “It’s not the matter of pork; it’s the matter of choice. No government should restrict the choice of eating. It’s a natural right to eat anything that a human being wants to!”
II.
The prince of the Cinet asked his father, “Dad, they are criticizing us not allowing pork…”
“Amilina forbid eating the small chicken. Tell me, why?” The King did not answer the question but asked his son.
“Small chicken should be protected because they are young.”
“Yes, but attention, it’s a moral reason, not a logic one. Eating small chicken is sick and lousy, so they prohibited it. They need a moral legitimacy for ruling the country. We need too. So we prohibit chicken. The different is just the level of moral standards.”
“Oh, OK, Dad. But … how do we distinguish youth chicken and adult chicken?”
“Moral reasons are mostly not steady, and that uncertainty always good for us. You will know that.”
“Then we prohibit the pork for the moral reason too? “
“You are too young, sometimes naive, my son!” Said the king, “It’s not the matter of choice; it’s the matter of interests. Remember: we are good at cooking beef, not pork. If we approve the pork before prepared, you may not be the next king of Cinet, my dear son! If you want to eat pork, just go Amilina, silently. But back to Cinet, we still cannot approve it. You understood?”
“So we prohibit chicken for the moral reason, but prohibit pork for the interests?”
“Not that simple. People used to reasoning their interests with moral argument. Not only us. You will see it. Anyway, pay attention to the guys who bought Eatool’s dishware specific for cooking the pork.”
The next day, Eatool was criticized in Cinet. The state central TV station blames Eatool providing the chicken, and saying chicken endangered the youth’s health. Under the heavy pressure, Eatool revised its menu, deleted all dishes made by chicken.  
III.
A month later, Eatool suddenly sticked a notice at its shop window:
“we decide to sell the pork in Cinet now! We will discuss this with the king of Cinet. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Eatool at Cinet. But we have decided to do that.”
This is a big news. Journalists throng to the office of Eatool’s headquarter.
– “Why do you sell the pork now?”
“Because someone tried to break our dishware!” The CEO of Eatool said with angry.
– “who?”
“Someone, not sure. They tried to break our dishware! Not only our products, but also many other Amilinan companies’. The attackers are organized!”
– “Government based?”
“Not sure, but the attacks are aiming at the dishware that we made for the clients who argue for the freedom of eating, either in Amilina or in Cinet!”
– “Em … what’s the relationship between dishware and pork?”
“Well, they attack the dishware, its violation of human right! We have principle.”
– “Sir, I mean, why didn’t you provide pork before, but now change the mind? Can the pork protect the dishware from attacking?”
“Uh … I guess so … attackers may be busy in ~~ eating pork … em … yes, human rights! They are both the matter of human rights, the matter of freedom of Choice.”
– “When you are saying the dishware, what freedom of choice is about to?”
“Uh… uh…, security! The security of dishware! Without security of dishware, how can we eat pork, beef and even chicken? So as I said, the dishware is highly relevant to the pork. We decide to sell pork because they break our dishware!”
IV.
Reading Eatool’s notice, a client of Eatool’s Cinet shop cried, “Watch it! It’s the principle! The moral of a company! They decided to provide pork! I love Eatool! I will cross the wall and visit Eatool even it’s Cinet restaurant closed! I will not eat in the King’s restaurant, even beef!”
“How did you get the pork before?” Her mama asked, washing the dishware bought from Eatool.
“Cross the wall and visit Eatool’s restaurant in Amilina.”
“So … there is no difference … By the way, where did you buy and repair this dishware?”
“Eatool’s shop in Cinet of course! They don’t prohibit selling dishware! How dare the King prohibit that!”
“OK, after Eatool closes its restaurant in our country. Where can we repair this dishware?”
“Em… cross the wall. It’s all because of the King! I hate the King!”
“Fine, I am old and poor. I cannot afford such long journey for either pork or beef in Eatool’s restaurant in Amilina. Before you fight the King for the Eatool, can you tell Eatool not to change its principle next time? That’s just like the king.“
“No mama, Eatool has principle; it was forced not selling pork!”
“Wash your dishware, dear. Eatool sold you it in Cinet. By the way, I suggest you marry the prince, which makes you eating the pork.”
“NO! I don’t like the prince!”
“OK, OK. Anyway, if you don’t marry the prince nor Eatool, then fight for yourself, for me, for those who cannot afford having diner in Eatool’s restaurant.“

The leading Chinese websites of BT sharing are shutting down since the beginning of December. BTChina (btchina.net), one of the most famous such sites, is totally shut down. And the rumour that its webmaster has been arrested was once widely spreaded. Yesterday, the webmaster of BTChina left a very brief message at the webpage:

It says:

I have to clarify that … the Radio, Film and Television Administration noticed me BTChina should be closed because the Register Serial Number of the Website (RSNW) is canceled by the Ministry of Industry and information Technology (MIIT). The reason of cancelling the Register Serial Number is BTCHINA has no “License for Dissemination of Audio-Visual Programs through Information Network” (LDAV). I am safe (not arrested). And this proved the online rumours are not reliable, especifically the news.

Not merely BTChina, many other well-known websites sharing  BT seeds are shut down since last week (read the story in Chinese at here). It is apparently that a campaign of cracking down online piracy has been kicked off by some Chinese central government officers, just following the compaign of shutting down pornographic wap sites for mobile phones.

Please, read the above story from a social-legal perspective. The compaign is obviously aiming at piracy. But the reason of shutting down those websites is not that they don’t have copyright license, but that they don’t have an administrative license of online dissemination of audio-visual programs issued by the government.

Although China has an Administrative License Law to restrict the pervasive application of it, the wide usage of licensing system can be parallel to the technical measures of GFW as the pillars of the Internet censorship. It is apparently that in China, proving a website “has no adminitrative license” is far easier than proving the content of that website “has no copyright license”. When Chinese officers say “the government administers the Internet according to the law”, they are saying mostly the licensing regulations, like the LDAV and the RSNW in the above story. In this circumstance, the copyright owners’ best strategy of fighting piracy may not be filing the case to court, but reporting the authority that the targeted website does not obtain the license of disseminating Audio-Visual programs (or license of disseminating other contents).

I personally don’t like such situation. But it is there, lively. That’s why I say the free culture in China should not merely be the freedom of amateur using copyrighted works, but also be the freedom of disseminating information. This is the premise of discussing copyright issues. I mean, either in a soceity that the freedom of dissemination exist or in a soceity that it does not exist, the copyright law may survive. But the “copyright paradox” in these two contexts should be various.

Rebecca Mackinnor brought an interesting talk at the Berkman Center on China’s Internet culture. See the video here, and see the notes by Ethan Zuckerman here, and notes by David Weinberger here.

In her presentation, Rebecca figures out the Back-Dorm Boys (后舍男孩), Premier Wen Jiabao’s 2-plus hour net chatting, rivercrab(河蟹), “alpaca sheep(草泥马)”, blocked blogs and so on. These are very familar to Chinese netizens, at least those Chinese netizens who are working on the social development of the cyberspace and the cyberlaw. While what the most important observation of Rebecca, in my view, appears at the Q&A session. She said that for many people living in the mainland China, they  just not noticed the censorship.

Why? Becuse they just have many other concerns about their life, and

(1) for Chinese mainlander students, there are so much interesting stuffs IN the Chinese Cyberspace, including “alpaca sheep”;

(2) for foreigners (and actually some Chinese white collars either, I think) in mainland, they can get anything if they can read English, unless one’s job focuses on the human rights issues specifically.

Yes, they just had not noticed the censorship. This is a very curcial and of course accurate description. Some may worry about this, but I’d say the contrary hereby.

Yes, the so-called cyber authoritarian may not be comfortable when someone meets it. However in most circumstance, one doesn’t have to knock into the wall. I mean, as a matter of fact, Chinese netizens just don’t HAVE TO notice it because comparing with the off-line world, the cyberspace itself, even in a firewalled intranet, have had brought so much fun to the people. It is the distributed network itself that provides the possibility of freedom of express, the freedom of knowledge sharing, the freedom of fun, the freedom of “lower taste” (低俗) – if not the freedom of obscene, and the freedom of piracy. This nature of the network is important, not only for the Internet controllers working for the regime, but also for the fighters of cyber democracy.

If there must be some value in the networked society, the best choice may not be, at least not only be the norm of freedom, but rather the Value of Value-neutral – not only for the technology, but also for the attitude to the cyber-society.

Actually, based on the same concern, in the cnbloggercon 2008, I proposed that a Chinese blogger conference may invite more bloggers who might never care about the social development, such as homosexual bloggers, Shebloggers, gourmets, and so on. They are making their own fun and create their own special information into the cyberspace continuously. In some sense, it is these various bloggers making the Chinese cyberspace being pluralistic, and then survived itself from a world of monopolization – of the money, power, resouce, and the thought.

Rebecca quotes the proverbs in Tao-te Ching (道德经) at the beginning of her talk (see slides here): 

The Kingdom is a spirit-like thing, and cannot be got by active doing. He who would so win it destroys it; he who would hold it in his grasp loses it.

天下神器，不可为也，为者败之，执者失之。

I’d echo the following sentence at the end of the same paragraph:

Hence the sage puts away excessive effort, extravagance, and easy indulgence.

是以圣人去甚，去奢，去泰。

1. Laws against Hacking (Unauthorized Access, Access with Criminal Intent)
There are two offences under the laws of Hong Kong aiming at “Hacking” activities:-
Cap.106 S.27a – Unauthorised access to computer by telecommunication
Cap.200 S.161- Access to computer with criminal or dishonest intent

CAP 106 TELECOMMUNICATIONS orDINANCE
Section 27A – Unauthorized access to computer by telecommunications – 16/06/2000
Section Num:
27A
Version Date
16/06/2000
Heading
Unauthorized access to computer by telecommunications

(1) Any person who, by telecommunications, knowingly causes a
computer to perform any function to obtain unauthorized access to any
program or data held in a computer commits an offence and is liable on
conviction to a fine of $20000. (Amended 36 of 2000 s. 28)
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)-
(a) the intent of the person need not be directed at-
(i) any particular program or data;
(ii) a program or data of a particular kind; or
(iii) a program or data held in a particular computer;
(b) access of any kind by a person to any program or data held in a
computer is unauthorized if he is not entitled to control access of the
kind in question to the program or data held in the computer and-
(i) he has not been authorized to obtain access of the kind in
question to the program or data held in the computer by any person who is
so entitled;
(ii) he does not believe that he has been so authorized; and
(iii) he does not believe that he would have been so authorized if
he had applied for the appropriate authority.
(3) Subsection (1) has effect without prejudice to any law relating
to powers of inspection, search or seizure.
(4) Notwithstanding section 26 of the Magistrates ordinance (Cap
227), proceedings for an offence under this section may be brought at any
time within 3 years of the commission of the offence or within 6 months of
the discovery of the offence by the prosecutor, whichever period expires
first.
(Added 23 of 1993 s. 2)

————–
CAP 200 CRIMES orDINANCE
Section 161 – Access to computer with criminal or dishonest intent – 30/06/1997
Section Num:
161
Version Date
30/06/1997
Heading
Access to computer with criminal or dishonest intent

(1) Any person who obtains access to a computer-
(a) with intent to commit an offence;
(b) with a dishonest intent to deceive;
(c) with a view to dishonest gain for himself or another; or
(d) with a dishonest intent to cause loss to another,
whether on the same occasion as he obtains such access or on any future
occasion, commits an offence and is liable on conviction upon indictment
to imprisonment for 5 years.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) “gain” (獲益) and “loss” (損失)
are to be construed as extending not only to gain or loss in money or
other property, but as extending to any such gain or loss whether
temporary or permanent; and-
(a) “gain” (獲益) includes a gain by keeping what one has, as well as
a gain by getting what one has not; and
(b) “loss” (損失) includes a loss by not getting what one might get,
as well as a loss by parting with what one has.
(Added 23 of 1993 s. 5)

2. Laws against Criminal Damage
Section 59 – Interpretation – 30/06/1997
Section Num:
59
Version Date
30/06/1997
Heading
Interpretation

PART VIII

CRIMINAL DAMAGE TO PROPERTY

(1) In this Part, “property” (財產) means-
(a) property of a tangible nature, whether real or personal,
including money and-
(i) including wild creatures which have been tamed or are
ordinarily kept in captivity, and any other wild creatures or their
carcasses if, but only if, they have been reduced into possession which
has not been lost or abandoned or are in the course of being reduced into
possession; but
(ii) not including mushrooms growing wild on any land or flowers,
fruit or foliage of a plant growing wild on any land; or
(b) any program, or data, held in a computer or in a computer
storage medium, whether or not the program or data is property of a
tangible nature.
In this subsection, “mushroom” (菌類植物) includes any fungus and “plant” (植物) includes any shrub or tree. (Replaced 23 of 1993 s. 3)
(1A) In this Part, “to destroy or damage any property” (摧毀或損壞財產) in
relation to a computer includes the misuse of a computer.
In this subsection, “misuse of a computer” (誤用電腦) means-
(a) to cause a computer to function other than as it has been established to function by or on behalf of its owner, notwithstanding that the misuse may not impair the operation of the computer or a program held in the computer or the reliability of data held in the computer;
(b) to alter or erase any program or data held in a computer or in
a computer storage medium;
(c) to add any program or data to the contents of a computer or of
a computer storage medium, and any act which contributes towards causing the misuse of a kind referred to in paragraph (a), (b) or (c) shall be regarded as causing it. (Added 23 of 1993 s. 3)
(2) Property shall be treated for the purposes of this Part as belonging to any person-
(a) having the custody or control of it;
(b) having in it any proprietary right or interest (not being an
equitable interest arising only from an agreement to transfer or grant an
interest); or
(c) having a charge on it.
(3) Where property is subject to a trust, the persons to whom it belongs shall be so treated as including any person having a right to enforce the trust.
(4) Property of a corporation sole shall be so treated as belonging to the corporation notwithstanding a vacancy in the corporation.
(Added 48 of 1972 s. 3)
[cf. 1971 c. 48 s. 10 U.K.]

————
Section 60 – Destroying or damaging property – 30/06/1997
Section Num:
60
Version Date
30/06/1997
Heading
Destroying or damaging property

(1) A person who without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property belonging to another intending to destroy or damage any such property or being reckless as to whether any such property would be destroyed or damaged shall be guilty of an offence.
(2) A person who without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property, whether belonging to himself or another-
(a) intending to destroy or damage any property or being reckless as to whether any property would be destroyed or damaged; and
(b) intending by the destruction or damage to endanger the life of another or being reckless as to whether the life of another would be thereby endangered,
shall be guilty of an offence.
(3) An offence committed under this section by destroying or damaging property by fire shall be charged as arson.
(Added 48 of 1972 s. 3)
[cf. 1971 c. 48 s. 1 U.K.]