Idea/expression Dichotomy Theory And Its Practical Application

Copyright law protects only the expression of ideas, not protects the ideasthemselves. This is an important theory, and is the cornerstone of copyright law. Thistheory divides works protected by copyright law into "idea" and "expression" twoparts. Copyright only protects the "expression", without the protection embodied inthe expression "idea". Idea and expression dichotomy is an important principle incopyright law theory. This theory not only has been widely recognized in thecopyright legislation,alsohas important guidingsignificanceinjudicial practice.Thistheoryalsobalancestheauthorandthepublicinterests,andencouragesthecreationofthe author. Facts proved that idea and expression dichotomy applies with fulllegitimacyincopyrightlawtheory.This paper analyzes dichotomy idea and expression from four aspects. The firstpart is the origin of idea and expression dichotomy theory and the establishing of thelegislation, and an overview of copyright legislation in the establishment of thesituation; the second part explains an expression of thought and the dichotomy oftheory,analyzes the "ideological"and "expression"respectively, andfurtherdiscussedthe value of this theory based on the rationality of the existence of this theoryanalyzed ahead; the third part stresses the defects of the thought and the mainexpression of two sub-theory, separately from the interpretation of the concept,boundaries of the distinction, and other applicable limitations and capabilities of thecoincidence; in the article, the last major expression is ideological and practicalapplication of theory, introduced another important theory named original theory inthe field of copyright infringement, then expressed production and development intest methods of the thought and expression dichotomy theory, and an overview oftheoryapplicable exceptions of thought and expression dichotomy, finally, this theoryappliestothesituationinChina.As can be seen from the study, although the theory of thought and expressiondichotomy has been heavily criticized since its production, however, its copyrightstatus still can not be replaced in this field, no matter in original theoretical orcopyright testingmethods, it shouldusethe content ofidea and expressiondichotomy theory as the theoretical support. In fact, whether the expression of thought and thetheoryofbinarydirect provisionofU.S.copyright lawortheprovisionsofthistheoryindirectly Germany, France and other places of the copyright law, they all recognizedthis theory in its own way. Although, copyright law in China does not specify thetheory, but it becomes an important legal principle and has been widely used injudicialpractice.