1

The Facts

“Little pencil in my hands, today I’ll draw a picture of mom. . .”

This is the first sentence of  “Drawing Mom”, a famous Chinese nursery rhyme.  The author is Zhang, the plaintiff in this case.  The defendant is publishing house “B”.

In May 1989, publishing house “A” published the book A Collection of Nursery Rhymes.  As agreed with Zhang, “Drawing Mom” was included in the collection, and the author was identified as “Han Feng”, the pseudonym of Zhang.  In March 1998, Zhang found his work “Drawing Mom” in the book Gu-lu-gu-lu Singing Nursery Rhymes, without his name, published by publishing house “B”.  Worst of all, some words of the song had been changed without informing him.  The plaintiff sued the defendant for copyright infringement.

Held

The copyright infringement was established.

Analysis

Some may think a copyrightable work must have a profound significance. At first glance, this may seem true, but this is a misconception. There is no doubt a work of profound significance may easily get copyright protection, but rights under the current copyright law are required by creating and fixing the original work regardless of its significance, provided it is not against the public interest.

In this case, although the words and chords of the song “Drawing Mom” are simple, it is a complete expression of an idea and could only have been created by Zhang.  Zhang might have played the chords on a guitar and sung the verses of “Drawing Mom” in his bedroom.  At that point, copyright protection did not exist.  However, once he recorded or wrote down the song, he fixed the work, and copyright protection began.