China has been making a big push for innovation and creativity in its plans for development. April 26th is World Intellectual Property Day, now in its 16th year. The National Copyright Administration has held a meeting on issues relating to the Internet. Delegates discussed the progress China has made, and the difficulties in dealing with online infringement. 

More than 200 government officials as well as media representatives joined the event. They looked back on the achievements China made last year in protecting copyright online. Some were awarded for their excellent work in fighting infringements.

According to government statistics, just a few days ahead of the meeting, more than 14 million pirated or illegal publications were destroyed across China.

In the first quarter this year, about 1.2 million pirated publications were seized nationwide.

However, with the rapid development of network and digital technologies, more and more illegal publications have moved online. And the concern is that the current rules and regulations on copyright protection lag far behind.

Jin Haijun, a legal expert in intellectual property rights at Renmin University, says protection work has to adapt to the changes, in line with its own legal principles.

"First of all, the protection rules and regulations must not obstruct the online distribution of publications. Secondly, they should be able to help with the creation of the publications. And the most important principle is that the copyright owners should be protected so that they are not taken advantage of," Jin said.

The National Copyright Administration issued a notice for online music providers to shut down unauthorized music distribution services in June last year.

As a result, over 2.2 million illegal songs were pulled from the music websites within two months. But remedial actions like that are not enough, nor easy.

"The internet has made it difficult for the copyright owners to protect themselves. That is because the copyright infringements online are scattered, so they're difficult to track," Jin said.

Experts say, China is still at the primary stage of intellectual property protection, especially in a rapidly changing digital content market. Efforts to fight infringement either online or offline have been made nationwide. Now what’s needed is an innovative way of protection that adapts to the rapid development of the Internet.