The Beijing People's Procuratorate and the Copyright Protection Center of China on Tuesday launched one of the country's first "blockchain + copyright prosecution" models, introducing a copyright protection chain to improve copyright verification and evidence review in prosecutorial work.

The new platform is designed to help prosecutors tackle three common problems in copyright cases: verifying whether ownership evidence is genuine, tracing the source of ownership, and proving complex authorization and transfer chains.

According to the procuratorate, over the past three years, the proportion of criminal cases in the field of copyright handled by Beijing's procuratorial organs has risen annually. Civil supervision cases have consistently accounted for more than half, with a proportion exceeding 50 percent.

Dou Libo, an intellectual property prosecutor with the People's Procuratorate of Beijing Municipality, said the rise of artificial intelligence has made forgery more sophisticated.

"In the AI era, methods of falsification are emerging one after another," Dou said. "When parties submit copyright ownership certificates, prosecutors have limited capacity to determine authenticity on their own and often need to conduct extensive evidence collection and verification."

He added that copyright registration information is scattered and lacks a unified, authoritative verification channel. In addition, copyright transactions often involve multiple layers of sublicensing and complex contractual relationships, making it difficult to verify authorization once part of the chain is missing.

The platform uses blockchain's tamper-resistant features to create a closed-loop process of submission, comparison and feedback. It can quickly verify whether a certificate is authentic, identify false information and connect with the Digital Copyright Chain. For complicated copyright transfers, the platform can integrate information on ownership confirmation and authorization, helping reconstruct the full process of a registered work from creation to transfer and contract filing.

According to a White Paper on Intellectual Property Prosecution Work released by the Beijing Municipal People's Procuratorate, Beijing procuratorates handled 1,195 intellectual property cases in 2025, up 10.34 percent year-on-year. These included 744 criminal cases, 255 civil cases, 183 administrative cases and 13 public interest litigation cases.

It showed that cases involving emerging sectors continued to grow. Prosecutors handled 113 IP cases related to artificial intelligence and data, covering issues such as AI-enabled infringement, the legal status of AI training data and ownership of data-related intellectual property.

Copyright disputes in cultural and creative industries also remained prominent. Beijing handled 122 criminal copyright cases, with 75.41 percent involving film, animation, gaming and related sectors.

In addition, foreign-related intellectual property cases also increased. Beijing procuratorates handled 244 such cases, accounting for 20.42 percent of the total. The cases covered areas including trademark infringement, copyright protection and geographical indications.

The Beijing procuratorate said the principle of equal protection for all rights holders has won broad recognition in such cases.