Problem Solution Essay Draft 2

The wide spread of social media provide instant information to bring us more convenient lives. However, as Internet platform proliferate and there is always lack of legal control over the information transmitted, chance for misuse of unauthorized items increase. Copyright infringement becoming a severe problem in China, misused of advertising photos on shopping website are being known as a common phenomenon, many sellers are using others photos to advertise their own products. Although some protection system has been implemented by Taobao to prevent photo infringement, false advertisement has never been putted to an end. The essay is going to discuss why the present solution has been unsuccessful and how IRP Team (Intellectual Property) of Taobao, SAIC (State Administration of Industry and Commerce of the people’s Republic of China) have crucial role to resolve this problem.

Proliferation of advanced Internet platform such as Weibo and shopping website enhance the large amount of photos being exposed and shared on Internet, this encourage online shoppers to use unauthorized photos from those platforms. Most of illegal sellers get infringing photos especially from Weibo as it shows high resolution of photos. According to the report, Taobao has always been criticized for offering counterfeit products and has often allows merchants to sell a brand’s products without the brand’s authorization (Frank, 2015). Large numbers of Taobao sellers post photos of products which are manufactured by other shops, or advertise their own products by using other shops brand to attract more customers. Furthermore, SAIC released a report claimed that 10.6% of products sold on major Chinese websites on the Single's Day online shopping holiday were not legitimate products from authorized dealers(Frank, 2015). This shows that the increasing Internet platform had worsen the problem of copyright infringement and result in false advertisement.

Taobao had implemented IRT Protection System to deal with the problems. Online reporting system allows shoppers and shop holders to report sellers who are using unauthorised photos. Penalty system was being used to alert and penalise sellers who intend to “steal” photos from other shops. However, the online reporting system has not been successful as reporter has to provide series of original photos of products to prove their ownership; the maximum size for uploaded photos is only 5MB. Numerous reporters are complaining that they could only upload compressed photos which look not much different from the photos being stolen. In many cases, it is difficult for officers to differentiate the original photos and infringing photos, furthermore ,it always take few days for them to complete the reporting process. The inefficient measurements explain why the false advertising is still rampant in China now.

To deal with this problem in more efficient way, reporting system in Taobao have to be developed. Firstly, IRP Protection System should increase more ways for people to provide information and evidence during reporting process. According to Time News, Amazon is the top online retailer with the largest sale in the world (Time News, 2013), it putting more effort in resisting infringing photos through more complete and sophisticated reporting system, to prevent counterfeit products from being sold. It allows photos to be uploaded in forms of link if the images size is too big and maximum fifty products can be reported at the same time, this helps sellers to provide evidence efficiently and have higher chance to succeed in reporting. Secondly, more details should be required from reporter when reporting. In case of Taobao, the ownership of products and photos, especially between producers and agent is always difficult to be identified. Moreover, as it is common for sellers and agents to advertise their products by posting photos on various platforms, original producers or brand were hardly being traced and recognized. Therefore, the reporting list should include information such as status and company name of seller, as well as personal information of shop owner and stuff participated in the production of products and photos. As more information provided, progress for investigation and report auditing may not be so time consuming.   

Apart from the development of reporting system, SAIC also play an important role in supervising the operation of Taobao. As mentioned before, Taobao’s reporting system has to be developed to increase the efficiency of resisting infringing photos. However, it will only succeed if IRT Team is fulfilling their obligation. Sina News reported that corruption between sellers and IRT officers have became common phenomena in Taobao (Liang, 2012). Officers who accepted bribes help illegal sellers to remove report towards them so those sellers can continue using infringing photos. In order to prevent the operation of system being disturb by the dishonesty officers, SAIC have to increase pressure on Taobao to supervise IRT Team by enhance relevant law. In 2012, under the pressure of SAIC, nine Taobao stores have been closed down and permanently barred from the Internet shopping platform after they allegedly bribed Taobao employees for illegal gains (ChinaDairy, 2012).This demonstrates that the surveillance of SAIC and the participation of Taobao managers are essential in fighting with copyright infringement.

In conclusion, the proliferation of social media encouraged the misused of unauthorized photos and further led to the false advertisement. The inefficiency of IRP Protection System and corruption among Taobao employee allows photo infringement continue to occur rampantly in Taobao. Therefore, development of reporting system is essential to resist infringing photos. Likewise, SAIC have responsibility to ensure that the reporting system can be functioned effectively by supervise the IRP Team under Taobao.

(905 words) 

Reference:

Frank,T,(2015),Alibaba disputes a Chinese government report that it sells phony goods. Internet Retailer. Retrieved from: https://www.internetretailer.com/2015/01/28/alibaba-defends-itself-reports-it-sells-phony-goods

List of 10 Best Online Shopping Sites in the World (2013, November 30). Times News. Retrieved from: http://www.timesnews.co.uk/974-list-of-10-best-online-shopping-sites-in-the-world/

9 Taoba stores shut for bribery (2012, May, 5).ChinaDairy. Retrieved from: http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-05/05/content_15217581.htm