"Pirated music has triggered rampant free downloads and there has been a blank in terms of digital copyright protection in the law for a long time," he said.
Zhang Hongbo, secretary-general of the China Written Works Copyright Society, hailed the progress seen in the draft. "For example it says people helping others to carry out activities that infringe on copyright would be also held responsible, which helps this act as a threat to more people."
The draft law has also raised the legal compensation standard for copyright holders from the previous maximum of 500,000 yuan ($80,250) to 1 million yuan.
"It's good to see pirates facing heavier penalties, but the law should be focusing on online piracy, which is a more urgent issue given that the online spreading of pirated works has caused greater losses to writers and publishers," said Wang Guohua, a lawyer with the Writers' Rights League (WRL).
The WRL, joined by writers and publishers alike in July 2011, lodged complaints about copyright violations by search engine Baidu's Wenku service and Apple's App Store, saying these had allowed the unauthorized downloads of hundreds of books.
Bei Zhicheng, the group's spokesperson, said that alongside guilty individuals, large IT companies which give silent consent to piracy should face huge fiscal punishments rather than simply paying a fee to purchase the copyrights they infringed on.
"Supervision over manufacturing and distribution should be further strengthened and public awareness of intellectual property rights protection should be ensured through more education and publicity," Zhao said.
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