On The Rental Right In The Copyright Law

Since the early-1980s, renting the movie works, the audio and video product and so on has become one of important forms of the use of the works and the object of neighboring rights. How to solve the rights and interests conflicts between the proprietor of subject of copyright and the owner of the real rights of the works original and duplicate in the renting process, and how to reach the best benefit balance point between the proprietor of subject of copyright, the owner of the real rights of the works original and duplicate and consumer's become the questions which urgently await to be solved in varied countries and even in the whole field of the international intellectual property rights. The stipulations related rental right in international conventions such as TRIPS agreement, WCT, and WPPT have provided the demonstrative norms for various members to construct rental right system and its lowest request.The rental right, as a new item of the contents of the works property rights, is a kind of exclusive rights entitled to the proprietor of subject of copyright or other obligee related. Comparing with other works property rights, its exercises involve more stakeholders, and the conflict between rights and interests is more incisive, so the attitude of the legislators towards the rental right is more cautious. The core questions of rental right concentrate to its necessity discussion ,and to whether or not the exclusive rental right should be entitled to the copyright owner and the proprietor of neighboring rights ,and to the object of rental right and so on.This article divides into five parts as a whole:Introduction briefly introduces the legislative process of the rental right in the sense of the copyright law and the attitude of legislators towards the rental right;The first part of the body is to explore the necessity of rental rights legislation. Rental right is the need to balance the varied interests and to achieve social justice by providing proprietors with financial compensation in the digital age; and at the same time it is the need to adapt to the provisions of relevant international conventions and to fulfill our international obligations.The second part, from such five aspects as the object, the subject, the content, the exercises and limit and the infringement behaviors, elaborates the legal structure of the rental right. The object of copyright is the works, but the object of rental right in the copyright law cannot be taken for granted to be the works, too. Such opinion cannot be copied mechanically on and applied slavishly to rental right. The object of rental right in the sense of copyright law cannot be treated as the same. The object of the rental right is divided into two categories: the object of the rental right of the works property and that of neighboring rights. In the process of attachments of works being rented, the object decides the ownership of rental benefits: If the rental object is the attachments, only to exert the effectiveness of materials, rental benefits belong to the owner of the attachments; otherwise, if the rental object is the work embodied in the attachments, rental benefits belong to the proprietor of subject of copyright or other obligee related. The subject of the rental right is the person who enjoys the rental right on copyright. The provisions of the rental right subject of China's Copyright Law take moderate protection principle, namely endows the specific subject with the appropriation rental right for the specific object The subject of rental right recognized by China's Copyright Law are the specific proprietors of subject of copyright or the specific proprietors of the neighboring rights. The contents of the rental right refer to the capacities of the rental right. The content of the rental right decides the way of the exercise of the rental right; the exercises of the rental right refer to how to implement the rental right. The limit to rental right is the law, under certain conditions, stipulates the restrictions to or exceptions for the rental right. The behaviors of violations of rental right are discussed in this part likewise.The third part from International organization, international convention stipulation rental right angle discusses rental right. Through discussions and introductions, combs the relations between them.In the fourth part of the body, the discussions involve in the status quo system of rental right set up by the provisions of the law of China; I will point out the insufficiencies of rental right legal system and make recommendations to improve.