China's National Copyright Administration (NCAC) is now seeking public opinions on the proposed Payment Methods for Use of Copyrighted Works in Textbooks, said a notice from the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council. 

According to the Methods, snippets of published works, short writings, musical compositions, single copies of paintings or photographic works that have been published, can be compiled in textbooks without permission of copyright holders - unless there are prior statements by the authors saying expressly to the contrary - and shall be paid for the use; at the same time, the names of the works and the authors must be specified and there must be no infringement of any other rights held by the copyright owners.

The rewards offered in the proposal are 300 yuan per thousand characters for writings, 300 yuan for each musical composition, 200 yuan for each copy of paintings or photographic works, and 50 yuan for each copy of sound recordings. 

"All textbook publishers can work together with us," suggested by Secretary General of China Written Work Copyright Society Mr. Zhang Hongbo, "to catalog copyrighted works excerpted or compiled in each textbook to guarantee that those authors can have access to this information." He also called for content creators to register their contact info at his organization to make sure the royalties, when transferred by the Society, can be delivered. 

The current rewarding standard for use of copyrighted works in textbooks is 100 yuan per thousand characters, and this is paid annually, introduced by Zhang, noting that it was formulated by referring to the price level in 1999 and is thus quite out of date. The new proposal in the Methods now raises this standard to 300 yuan, which is part of the concrete measures of NCAC to actively protect right holders during the amendment of the national copyright law. 

Authors whose works have been most used by People Education Press in textbooks in 2010 are Lao She, Jin Bo, Bing Xin, Ye Shengtao, Zhang Qiusheng, Guo Moruo, Sheng Ye, Ba Jin, Feng Zhi and Zhu Guangqian, as shown in statistics. NCAC’s efforts have been welcomed by Jin Bo, a notable author of children’s literature.