Research On Copyright Contract Of Academic Journals

The copyright contract of academic journals is the agreement which achieves on the copyright license or copyright transfer by the author and the academic journal publishing house as a user or a transferee. A comprehensive, legally effective copyright contract of academic journals is clear about the rights and obligations of both the publishing house and the author, can also enable the academic works to widely disseminate and fully utilized to meet the needs of the public interest, can also achieve the goal of protecting all parties copyright and balancing the benefit of author, publisher, reader. According to the practice of academic journal signing copyright contract, this article conduct a study of relevant legislation and the academic journal copyright contract's form and content to provide the content reference and the legal basis for the academic journal making copyright contract, and provide the reference for improving the copyright contract law.In the publication practice, the academic journal is quite common regarding the license contract uses the non-written form, but uses the written contract form many for the copyright transfer contract. The form of contract is different, so the establishment of the contract and how to determine the contents of the contract is different. Non-written contract should be based on the contents of the Authors, the two sides in the process of contracting a variety of oral and written, etc. to determine the meaning of that, not only complicated but also difficult to determine, easily lead to disputes, is not conducive to the protection of the rights of the contracting parties to realize and transaction security.In contract contents determination, on the one hand, the notice to contributors widely uses in reality. After the contract was established, particularly in the non-written form's situation, the notice to contributors' content is an important basis to determine the content of the rights and obligations between the publishing house and the contributor. "The notice to contributors" which takes the unspecific person as the object has an important impact on the rights and obligations of contributors. Based on the study on "the notice to contributors" which is collected, the Authors analyzed common contents relating to the rights and obligations of the two sides of contract. On the other hand, in the practice also some academic journal publishing house uses the written copyright contract. Combined with China's copyright law, the provisions of the contract which is collected, such as the name of works, the author's name and the name of periodical press, the right type of contract involved, the geographical scope and duration, the use of reward and transfer price payment, liability for breach of contract and other content which agreed in the contract, is analyzed in the paper. Through the analysis of the content of the notice to contributors and copyright contracts, we can see that the copyright contracts of Chinese academic journals mainly have the questions, such as the lack of standard form of contract, incomplete contents of contracts, and contract rights between the two sides imbalance.This article then inspected the situation of overseas academic journal signing copyright contract, and unifies the analysis of the books publishing contract and the performance contract contents, to provide the reference for dealing with the problem of the academic journal copyright contract.This paper studies the domestic and foreign legislation, mainly concentrated in the different cases of copyright legislation about the form and content of the contract. To the contract form's standard, The Anglo-American legal system's national like the United Kingdom, the United States and Hong Kong region of China uses the strict formalism, mainly in order to maintain the transaction security and protect benefit of the good intentions third person. Taking an overview of national legislation, in the issues of copyright contracts form, the treatment of copyright (the intangible right) trade in most countries, have taken a relatively cautious attitude of the contract and have been entered into the form of norms. However, in some countries such as Russia and China, the form of journal copyright contracts has made exceptions, mainly taking into account the efficiency of the conclusion of the contract. In the issues of copyright contracts contents, common law countries in general has not addressed the specific provisions of the copyright contract, civil law countries on the copyright of the contents of the contract requirements in more detail, especially with regard to the specificity of copyright contracts as well as certain kinds of important copyright contracts. China's copyright law should be further improved the compulsory stipulation of copyright contracts.This article concludes that, to solve the problem which our country academic journal copyright contract faces, we should improve the content of legislation and establish a comprehensive contract model of academic journal copyright contract. First, it is suggested that should perfect the copyright law from following several aspects: the copyright law should be clear about the legal effect of the notice to contributors, to regulate the release of the Authors, the legality of the use of its content, which play a non-written copyright Authors adjustment contract rights and obligations of both the role of the relationship; because the current stipulation about the copyright reward and the price possibly caused the author who in the actual execution was at the weak trend position originally to lose the lowest safeguard of obtaining the just reward, had disobeys the original intention of protecting the author benefit, the copyright law should have the compulsory stipulation about giving author the copyright using cost and the copyright transfer price; our country copyright law should strictly to the demand for the periodical copyright contract form. The copyright law should stipulate when periodical publication work, should use the written form in the copyright transfer and the appropriation permission service condition to work out the contract, the non-appropriation permission use may use the non-written form. And stipulates when the permission use, if uses the non-written form, as to whether the use of exclusive license agreement, when unknown, presumed to be within a certain period of time the exclusive license to use; China's copyright law should have the stipulation about the duration of the copyright transfer; should also stipulate the reasonable standard and legal consequences of charging the page layout fee, namely, if the academic journals charge the page layout fee, then do not simultaneously request the author to license or transfer copyright, only if other payment is higher than in the usual situation the transfer price or the copyright working cost. In this paper, followed by academic journals copyright of the contract should have 14 main provisions refer for the actual use.