On the Concept of Chinese Data Property Law – A Third Way?

Abstract Data have become the most important resource in the digital economy, and a legal framework may be needed to promote data sharing and exploit the value of data on the market, especially in the context of the development of the Internet of Things and AI. However, the right way to achieve this is subject to different approaches in legislation and data governance concepts centring around ownership in data. After extensive discussions, the EU chose not to establish exclusive rights for data but instead created a user-centred data access right against data holders. In contrast, China, as a civil law country, adopted a concept from common law systems, borrowing the ‘bundle of rights’ concept from property rights to establish a new form of data property rights. This paper examines in detail China’s emerging data property rights regime and analyses the concept in dogmatic terms. A comparison will also be made with the EU’s data access approach. While both systems face the same problems of solving conflicting interests, the two data rights systems differ significantly in terms of legal instruments to effectuate data sharing. This paper argues that the EU’s data access rights might offer valuable insights into China’s developing framework. At the same time, the Chinese approach may provide inspiration should the EU re-examine its own approach and revisit its intellectual property legislation concerning raw and derived data in the future.