The politics of the Digital Single Market: culture vs. competition vs. copyright

This paper examines the implications for European music culture of the European Union’s (EU) Digital Single Market strategy. It focuses on the regulatory framework being created for the management of copyright policy, and in particular the role played by collective management organisations (CMOs or collecting societies). One of the many new opportunities created by digitalisation has been the music streaming services. These depend on consumers being able to access music wherever they are, but such a system runs counter to the management of rights on a national basis and through collecting organisations which act as monopolies within their own territories. The result has been ‘geo-blocking’. The EU has attempted to resolve this problem in a variety of ways, most recently in a Directive designed to reform the CMOs. In this paper, we document these various efforts, showing them to be motivated by a deep-seated and persisting belief in the capacity of ‘competition’ to resolve problems that, we argue, actually lie elsewhere – in copyright policy itself. The result is that the EU’s intervention fails to address its core concern and threatens the diversity of European music culture by rewarding those who are already commercially successful.     

论著作权客体的演变

著作权客体及其演变是著作权理论和著作权法律制度的重要问题之一。各国著作权法律制度的历史发展表明，著作权法所规定的著作权客体保护范围经历了由小到大的演变过程，而且作品成为受著作权法保护的客体所要求的构成要件呈减少趋势。经济社会的发展，特别是科学技术的发展导致了著作权立法的变化、作品载体的变化以及作品创作方式和表现形式的变化。这些变化是著作权客体保护范围不断扩大的原因。研究著作权客体演变的规律及其原因有益于丰富著作权理论和完善著作权法律制度。     

3D打印中CAD文件的定性与复制问题研究

3D打印技术的发展使著作权法上的复制变得更为高效便捷,由此产生了一系列亟待梳理和解决的问题。基于3D打印技术原理,可将其分为输入和输出两个环节。在输入环节,对CAD文件的作品类型进行规制,采用视觉标准界定立体作品,并以“美术作品+模型作品”的思路进行综合保护;在输出环节,3D打印属于复制,且可以实现从平面到立体和从立体到立体的复制形态,复制权的控制范围应不限于现行法律所列举的方式。针对3D打印技术在网络传播中的侵权风险,应对合理使用中的私人复制予以限制,灵活运用“三步检验标准”对合理性进行审查。3D打印在著作权法方面并未引发新的法律问题,现行制度已存在包容空间,不必为其特设著作权新规,通过对现有规则的解释和借助已有案例的适用经验便能解决可预见的著作权法争端。     

知识产权对经济增长的影响——以专利和版权为例

尽管知识产权制度能否通过保护知识产权而激励创新和技术进步进而促进经济发展备受争议,不可否认的是,中国知识产权制度影响着经济的发展。基于此,将知识产权划分为专利和版权两个方面,利用中国31个省份2000—2013年的面板数据,分别对专利和版权影响经济增长的路径进行检验分析。结果表明:专利、版权数量的增多能够促进经济增长,但并不是越多越好。教育水平提高能够促进经济增长,技术市场对经济增长的作用不明显。知识产权对经济增长的影响因地区而异,这为不同地区专利和版权的保护措施提供借鉴意义。     

公共借阅权研究

公共借阅权是著作权人利益与社会公众利益平衡的结果。它不是直接控制作品的权利,其内容仅在于获取补偿金。文章探讨了公共借阅权问题的提出,界定了其概念和权利性质,归纳了其特征,并对公共借阅权在适用中的问题作出了一些理论上的阐述。     

RIDICULING THE ‘WHITE BREAD ORIGINAL’

The 1994 US Supreme Court decision in Luther Campbell et al. v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., written by Justice David Souter, reversed a lower court decision and argued in favor of the rap group 2 Live Crew's playful critique of Roy Orbison's ‘Oh Pretty Woman’ by its function as parody. This essay seeks to contextualize that decision by showing the roots of 2 Live Crew's recording in the practice of ‘covering’ – the re-recording of an existent popular composition – and thus the possibilities for redefining authorship that arose with the advent of digital technology. The compositional techniques allowed by computer programs led to the proliferation of sampling in the hip-hop community, thereby liberating sounds from the original content and reconfiguring them in new songs. The technique allowed a critical, and in some cases adversarial, stance to be taken towards long-standing Western definitions of authorship and ownership. 2 Live Crew added to this rich stew of possibilities the familiar and time-tested genre of parody. Their piece took what one judge referred to as the ‘white bread original’ of the Roy Orbison record and twisted about the implicit point of view with regard to gender and sexuality. Discussion of the legal complications that followed upon the suing of the group by the holder of the copyright in the Orbison song, Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., includes the apparently sanctioned use of the song in the Disney-produced film Pretty Woman as well as the use of other Orbison material in director David Lynch's Blue Velvet. The essay concludes with suggestions as to how the language of Justice Souter's decision allows not only for future parodies but also a reinvigoration of speech, one which calls into question power relationships codified in US copyright statutes.     

Towards an affirmative public domain

Two competing and yet complementary philosophical concepts form the foundation for the legal protection of intellectual property – ‘competing’ in that created works protected by copyright are unavailable for unrestricted use by others as a result of the economic monopoly given to the works’ owners, and ‘complementary’ in that the presumption is that works no longer protected by copyright serve as the basis for the creation of new copyrightable works. These unprotected works comprise the ‘public domain,’ which has never been affirmatively defined. In Golan v. Holder (2012), the US Supreme Court concluded that such a realm is constitutionally unimportant. This research contends, however, that the Court's decision is incorrect, that Golan, federal legislation, and international treaties threaten to bring larger and larger portions of cultural and intellectual content under the control of a property regime that does not understand the contradiction inherent in the notion of absolute property rights in intangible goods. The result is that the public domain is under tremendous pressure from those entities which have the most to gain from expanded authorial rights and from a weakened and less inclusive public domain. Citizens thus will have fewer rights to access and freely use their culture as they choose. The eventual significance of this evolution will be that further creativity and innovation will be stifled, the opposite of the intention of intellectual property law. In this article, we develop an affirmative definition of the public domain, which we believe will correct the imbalance in current intellectual property law.     

试论网络环境下的私人复制

在模拟技术条件下,版权与复制相安无事,版权基本能涵盖所有的复制问题。但随着数字技术的运用和网络的普及,大量作品可以随意复制,版权对复制的约束在网络环境下面临新的挑战。通过介绍网络环境下私人复制的论争,探讨私人复制的定位,解析我国著作权法对私人复制的规定及不足,提出了完善我国网络环境下私人复制制度的相关措施,以期对解决司法实践中存在的相关问题有所帮助。     

台湾学术伦理案件法律属性之分析

我国台湾地区对于触及科研不端行为的规范,统称为学术伦理规范。学术伦理案件涉及研究人员与国家机关之间、研究人员与其所在单位之间行政法律关系;涉及行政处分、行政契约、法规命令及行政规则、行政计划以及行政指导等行政行为形式;涉及行政义务履行确保、行政调查、行政程序、行政争讼及国家补偿等五套制度。学术伦理案件所涉规范与著作权法之间有部分重叠之处,也必须加以厘清。     

网络著作权侵权案件的民事管辖权探析

网络技术的发展使网络的重要理念———资源共享已愈来愈成为网络使用者的共识。然而,作为新事物的互联网,不可避免地给传统的知识产权制度带来了重大挑战,尤其资源共享的理念与著作权的专有性之间的冲突更是明显,由此而给网络著作权侵权案件的民事管辖带来理论困境。本文试图从学者们的理论探索及司法解释中探求我国解决该问题的办法,提出了原告住所地优先原则、侵权行为地原则、侵权结果地原则。