The dispute on logo copyright of China Central Television (CCTV) has escalated when the plaintiff Zhang Desheng appealed to higher court after losing the case in the first instance.
Zhang designed the logo when he worked in CCTV's news department in 1978, which was adopted and formally used by CCTV since January that year. But the Television didn't pay him for using it. On March, 2001, Zhang put CCTV to court. He claimed the copyright of CCTV logo, demand CCTV stop infringement action and pay him a sum of 300,000 yuan for using the logo.
According to the judgement in the first instance, the logo can only be used by CCTV since the logo must contain "CCTV" four letters and relevant institutions. For artistic works of this kind, i.e. a work designed for certain special purpose, the designer doesn't have right to control its use or allow others to use it and the copyright belongs to the group who collected it. What's more, Zhang didn't claim the copyright over the past 20 years, which meant that he admitted the fact that the logo went to CCTV.
During Tuesday's hearing Zhu Shouquan, lawyer for the plaintiff argued that the first-instance court should judge the case in accordance with the "Copyright Law" instead of the "Contract Law". According to the "Copyright Law", the author's right should go to the trustee since no agreement had been reached on the copyright. The CCTV logo, different from the national emblem, is an ordinary work therefore its copyright should belong to its designer Zhang Desheng.
While lawyer Ma Xiaogang on behalf of CCTV said that the logo is not an ordinary artwork, therefore, CCTV should have an exclusive owning of it, and the rights of the logo can not be separated.
Widely apart on this issue, the two parties involved have turned down court mediation and the result is yet to come.
(People's Daily February 28, 2002)
