Creating new order in the knowledge economy: The curious journey of copyright in China, 1868--1937

Widespread piracy of intellectual property in modern-day China has convinced international legal scholars and policy makers that the Chinese not only lack awareness of intellectual property but also refuse to protect this internationally recognized doctrine. It seems natural to think that copyright law in China is a story of failure. But is it? This Dissertation shows that most scholars and commentators have neglected to see how copyright, an internationalizing doctrine, was actually received and enforced in pre-1949 China. Drawing upon a wide range of published and unpublished archival sources, including actual books (both authentic and pirated) produced during this period, this dissertation traces how the very concept of "copyright" became banquan (literally "the right to printing blocks") in Chinese, and how it was understood, appropriated, and practiced as a new legal doctrine by the Chinese to declare ownership, define literary property, and create orders in a changing knowledge economy. In tracing this history, I argue that the concept of "copyright" should be seen not as a fixed and timeless legal term, but as a vessel that contains different meanings and values in different historical and cultural contexts. How historical actors understood and employed this concept is best seen in the practices and norms they associated with it rather than the letter of the law.;Although new laws protecting copyright appeared constantly in China in the early twentieth century, these laws received minimal enforcement due to the weaknesses of the successive Chinese governments. This fact, however, did not prevent people from consistently invoking the concept of copyright to claim or to protect their own profits. Yet, each had their own interpretation of what "copyright" was and who should own it. Copyright/banquan intertwined with pre-existing practices and notions of cangban (literally "possessing printing blocks") in the xylography-based print cultures in late imperial China. As the result, it was understood as ownership of the means of production rather than ownership of abstract intellectual creation. The Shanghai Booksellers' Guild, I argue, was the only institution that managed to maintain a minimal protection of "copyright" between 1900s and 1950s; it did so primarily on its own initiative and with its own resources. The Guild registered new titles and old printing blocks, adjudicated ownership disputes, and even operated a private police force to punish those who pirated its members' books. While the Chinese central state and its laws existed more in name than reality, the Guild, a private trade organization with no legitimate jurisdiction or official authorization actually regulated and protected "copyright." The Guild's qualified success highlights the key role of trade organizations not only in commerce and law, but also in the fabric of social life of China prior to 1949. The illuminating case of the Shanghai Booksellers' Guild's enforcement of copyright thus offers insights into the history of copyright protection in China, but also compels us to reconsider conventional presumptions about the effectiveness of the late Qing and the Republican states within their own core territories. This dissertation shows that the absence of an evenly effective state does not mean that aspects of social and economic life necessarily would fall into total chaos. Non-governmental actors could create some level of order and predictability within a larger, seemingly fractured or even anarchic public space while successfully manipulated the weak state to further their specific interests.