Thought Control And Rights Protection

This dissertation focuses on the evolution of the history of Chinese Copyright Law, which has been proved the first one to study the subject in the domain. Nevertheless, there exist in China cultural heritage or periodic studies on the subject .The dissertation is intended to cover the whole structure and the history from the copyright protection in Song dynasty to the recent amendments to the Copyright Law in China. The three important and macroscopic clues to study the history of Chinese Copyright Law given by Mr. Zhou Lin, a young scholar in copyright law, leads to my further study and consideration to the dissertation. The studies on the copyright law now mainly concentrate on institutional construction due to its practicability, but in fact it is of necessity for the theoretical study on the copyright law.The dissertation, calculated 235,000 words, consists of eight chapters besides introductory comments. In Chapter One, the author examines the formation of the idea of the concept of copyright in United Kingdom, reviews the evidence of restrictions on the unauthorized reproduction of certain books by the official government of the Song Dynasty, was the control of people's thinking or the protection of intellectual property. The famous American Sinologist, Professor William P. Alford, on the basis of cultural view, believed that the imperial Chinese throne's monopoly ofbooks printing and therefore restrictions on the unauthorized reproduction of certain books, was aimed not at the protection of the intellectual property, but at the control of ideas spreading in imperial China. Professor Alford contributed it to the main reason why no ideas of personal intellectual property existed and thereto no civil remedy for penalizing unauthorized reproduction of certain books in imperial China, in a nutshell, the imperial China disregarded it as private rights. Contrary to it, it could be found from the view of western tradition of freedom and democracy that no concept of the state's authority and personal rights in political words of the imperial China, that is , no existence of the state's authority nor civil society. The author supports the view that we must face the practice and logic in the imperial China, regardless the official intention of safeguarding the throne's authority.Chapter Two studies from the Chinese tradition in political culture instead of reproduction technology the reason why the protection for an author's intellectual property in Song Dynasty couldn't develop into the protection under the Copyright Law. Anthropology finds the creation of the civilization in the world context, i.e. the transformation from ancient times to societies with ranks of classes, has two basic means: one is the social fundamental changes due to the productive tools and productive means based on the breakthrough of technology, through which produced confusion with the ancient times. The other one is new era created by theestablishment and maintain of the political authority and rights, from which inherited some types of institutions, views and ceremonies. Thus China developed into a different legality from the West, ethical notions prevailed, no departure from criminal law to civil law, the law being a ruling way in close conformity with criminal rules(xing)and military rules(bing). And civil matters concerned were translated into morals. That rule by morality needed no statutes of private law. The ancient intelligentsias known as the gentry class didn't foster the private possession of his works because of the ideas of believing in and loving the Ancients, and couldn't be independent from the society owing to the notions those who learn well can be officials. The merchants including publishers belonging to the state's institutes effected on a certain degree the birth of China Copyright Law although the merchants were taken good care of after the Ming dynasty. In United Kingdom, the copyright law derived from the unbalanced benefits divided between and in the societies of publishers, and the compromise betwe...