Study On "the Copyright Code Of Great Qing Dynasty"

The subject of this article is "the Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty", which is the major achievement of the late Qing copyright legislation. In the history of China's copyright legislation, "the Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty" has extremely important research value. It has accumulated legislative experience and lessons to our country, and provides inspiration for improving copyright protection system. Therefore, this paper studies "the Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty" and researches into the success and failure of the Qing Dynasty Copyright legislative activities, this is the value of this research.This paper is divided into four parts. The background and causes, the content, comparison with the blueprint and legislation influence of "the Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty" are emphasized.In the introduction of this paper, the value of "the Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty" is explained. "The Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty", as China's first copyright legislation, is of epoch-making significance in our country' history of Copyright legislation, and achieves a breakthrough in China's copyright legislation.In the first part, the author discusses the historical background and the legislative process of this law. Everything has its own reason, so we can systematically analyze the historical inevitability of its burn by introducing in detail the background and reason of "the Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty". We can also find that the legislatures at that time had already had the features of those of the neoteric time by their composing and procedures. At last, the author explicates the legislative procedures of the code in detail to further explain that "the Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty" has already been characterized as the neoteric laws.Part two of the dissertation concerns the main idea of the code, which finally gives out the characteristics of it as well. Seen from the pattern, "the Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty" could be divided into two parts-the main text and the annex. The main text is composed by five chapters: General Rules, Time Lapse of Right, Duties to Submit, Limitations on Rights and the supplementary articles, etc. The author compares it to the modern copyright legislations in order that she could systematically analyze the advanced and backward natures of the code. The annex is arranged afterwards the text, which stipulates the three formations of the text. The way of putting the formations backwards is so rare in the world that it shows clearly the legislative specialty. After the analysis of the text and the annex, there comes the conclusion at the end of this part to summarize the characteristics of the code.The third part is about the comparison of "the Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty" to its original version- the Japanese Copyright Law 1899. At first, the author analyzes in particular the similarities of the two codes, and then she finds that because of the imitation of the "the Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty" to the Japanese Copyright Law, the two ones get much similarity at the aspects of structure and institutions. On the other hand, there are still some differences between the two due to the considerations of the legislators to the specific situations of the country and the reference to legislations of other countries. So next to the similarities, the author analyzes the differences of the two. Among all the differences, the greatest one is that of the legislative conception. Through the discussion of the two different conceptions, the author claims that the two codes used the principles that belong relatively to the two law systems. While the Qing Dynasty adopted the Registration System of the common law system, the Japanese legislators preferred the Auto Protection Principle of the continental law system. Besides, another difference is that the "the Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty" made some abnegators to the Japanese legislation. Those conceptions and institutions that didn't fit the society were abandoned, the contents and reasons of which are concretely analyzed by the author here. At last, the author also summarizes the comparison, stating that when imitating the Japanese Copyright Law, the legislators of Qing Dynasty didn't do the copy automatically, but they completed their tasks selectively according to the specific political, cultural and legal backgrounds of that time.In the fourth part the author discusses the impact on future generations and legislative enlightenment. Through comparing with the structure and content of the Copyright Law of the future generations and "the Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty", the author concludes that legislations in the future should use it for reference. When evaluating "the Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty", the author makes her comments from both the progressive aspects and the limitations, and finally concludes that the progressive aspects of this Code are surely taking the overcoming position.The last part is the conclusion. The author sums up the research findings and her own point of view, in the hope that all these outcomes would do something good to the future research of "the Copyright Code of Great Qing Dynasty".