A Comparative Study On The Copyright Systems In Film Industry

Science and Technology development has radically changed the traditional creating mode of the copyright works. Works for mass entertainment involves extensive creative participants and considerable investment, and is more often, sometimes only could be produced by the mighty power of cultural industries. Since its birth, copyright problems related to films and film industries have become one of the major issues of copyright theory, diverse copyright systems has been adopted by countries based on their legal traditions and copyright theories, and international legislations have been endeavoring to unify different legal provisions in the area. It is of theoretic significance to conduct comparative study to archetypal legal systems and international legislations in the area. Chinese government has set forth its "Cultural Industry Thriving Programme", one of its objects is promoting the film industry, it's also of great practical significance to study and make use of the experience of legislation and judicial practices of those whose film industries has been well-developed. The dissertation studies thoroughly on the typical copyright systems of film industry and related international legislations with comparative method, and try to bring forth some legislative advices to the Chinese copyright system in film industry.The dissertation starts with an Introduction and consists of five chapters; it ends with a conclusion which sums up the main ideas of the dissertation.The Introduction indicates the theoretic and practical significance of the study, introduces the methodology adopted and the general structure of the study. It indicates that Chinese copyright system of the film industry is reasonable but could be further improved.The first chapter is general introduction to the copyright system of film industry and its developing history. The main issues in the copyright system in film industry include the object, term and exclusive rights of the film copyright; the authorship and ownership of film copyright; plus the profit participation system in the film industry. The author's right countries, as represented by France and Germany, and the copyright countries such as Britain and America, once adopted similar legal provisions to protect copyright of films in the early years of film industry, but they went apart and eventually developed diverse copyright systems in the area based on their legal traditions and industrial practices. The development of technology and economy played important role in the process, and it will still influence current trend of the copyright system in film industry.Chapter 2 studies the legal protection of film copyright. Section 1 discusses the object of film copyright. The definition of "film" is under extension to cover more new types of audiovisual works. Legislations set various protection criteria to film works, such as criterion of originality, criterion of fixation, the separation of ideas and expressions, US still preserve the unique requirement of formalities. The objects of film copyright is different in each copyright system, author's right countries adopt the double-protection system, separating copyrights and related rights, with the objects of film works and recordings of film works. UK also implements unique double-protection system for the conflict between statute law and case law. Section 2 discusses the term of film copyright. The term of film copyright under US law is governed by the principle of "work made for hire", while European Union unifies the copyright terms in the union through copyright directive. Section 3 analyzes the exclusive rights of film copyright, especially the expansion of traditional rights and the new rights emerging in the era of digital and internet technology.Chapter 3 studies the copyright ownership and profits participation in the film industry. First, the authorship of film work has been a headache problem in copyright legislations, author's right countries tend to "creators authorship" while copyright countries grant authorship to film producers. Accordingly, author's right countries grant film creators (authors) the ownership of the film, on the other hand, initial ownership of film copyright is vested in the producers. But in author's right countries, statutory presumption of copyright assignment is established to collect necessary copyright to the producers, mostly with certain restraints to the autonomy of copyright contract in order to protect the authors'(actors/actress) interests. Author's right countries and copyright countries offer protections to the equitable remuneration of film creators, for the purpose of fair profit participation in the industry. Author's right countries protect the equitable remuneration of authors by mandatory rules or even preservation of certain copyrights in the statutory law. In copyright countries, equitable remuneration is guaranteed by labor law and collective agreements in the film industry.Chapter 4 analyzes the uniform legislation of film copyright in the international scale. Bern Convention and WIPO Copyright Treaty have direct influence on native legislations in the area, and facilitate the unifying process of the international copyright law. To guarantee the internal market and free-flow of goods and services in the union, EU has harmonized the native legislations of member states through several copyright directives. The legislations in the Union thus reached higher level of harmonization than international copyright law. Until now, the predominant conflict rule in copyright area is still "lex protectionis", which could be applied to many aspects of copyright, including initial ownership and infringement. The chapter then concludes developing tendencies of copyright system in film industry. Exclusive rights of film copyright are expanding in the new technology era, the copyright term is also extended. For practical consideration of film exploitations, almost all legislations tend to grant or transfer film copyright to producers, while guarantee the equitable remuneration of creators in the industry. But there is still insurmountable gap between author's right system and copyright system on the issue of moral rights of film creators. Both international and regional legislations avoid the problem, which makes the harmonization in the area even more difficult.Chapter 5 elaborates on the current Chinese copyright system in film industry and brings forth legislative suggestions. The copyright system in film industry which consists of provisions in Copyright Law, Implementing regulations of the Copyright Law and related judicial interpretations is generally reasonable and its guiding concept is quite advanced. According to the legislative and judicial practice experiences of the well-developed countries, Chinese current legislation could be further improved in aspects related to the definition of film work, related rights in audiovisual recording, copyright term of film work, copyright ownerships of film work, moral rights of film creators and equitable remuneration protection to the creators. Due to the relatively strong administration power, the administrative agency should play more important role in the improvement of copyright system in film industry. The foundation of film industry could be strengthened only when reasonable copyright system is established.The Conclusion sums up the whole dissertation. What could be concluded through comparative study to the historical and current copyright systems in film industry is that the majority of legislations construct their copyright system on the bases of practical and economic necessity, when implemented, they may have the same practical effects despite the seeming diversity. It could also be concluded that the absolute good system does not exist; but there is the right system for each country, which could gradually form in the interaction to the related industrial operation. Chinese intellectual property law experienced leaping development over the years, which involves transplants of legal systems. The current copyright system of our country in film industry shares more analogy with copyright system rather than author's right system, the utilitarian copyright system is proved to be more effective to the promotion of Chinese film industry, and should be further improved.