Study Of The Legal Issues Of Copyright Transfer

The system of assignment of copyright is an important part of copyright legislation in many countries. In China,it had not included in the copyright law until 2001. This dissertation conducts a basic research on the fundamentals of the assignment of copyright,including its concept,nature and contents. Particularly,on the basis of analyzing the knotty problems in the practice of the assignment of copyright,the dissertation makes several legislative suggestions for the purpose of further improving the system of assignment of copyright in China.The dissertation proceeds as follows. The first part defines the concept and nature of the assignment of copyright and clarifies the differences between the assignment of copyright and other relevant concepts related to the assignment of copyright,such as "transfer of copyright","licensed use" and "assignment of neighboring right".The second part reexamines the five theories from the perspective of the historic development of the system of assignment of copyright. The five theories include:(1) the doctrine of spiritual ownership;(2) the doctrine of absolute personal right;(3) the doctrine of intangible property right;(4) dualism;and (5) monism. On the basis of the comments of the five theories,this part sets up the principles which should be followed in the Chinese legislation.In the third part,the contents of the assignment of copyright are discussed. After analyzing the different views on the nature of copyright in both the common law system and civil law system,this part expounds the different concepts and legal provisions of the assignment of copyright in both systems. It focuses on the legislation in common law countries such as the United States and the UK,civil law countries such as France,Germany,the former Soviet Union and China. After defining the alienability of the property right in copyright,this part goes further to explore the scope problems of the assignment of copyright,such as the whole assignment and partial assignment of copyright,the assignment of future works,the time-limit for the assignment of copyright and the relationship between copyright and its physical carrier. Finally,this part discusses the problem of coordination between the economic right in copyright,which is transferred after an assignment,and the spiritual right in copyright,which permanently remains in the hands of the author. After making an analysis of the three models of coordination,i.e. the doctrine of assignment of spiritual right,the doctrine of renunciation of spiritual right and the doctrine of exhaustion of spiritual right,it draws the conclusion that the doctrine of exhaustion of spiritual right shall be the most reasonable model.The fourth part discusses some practical issues related to the assignment of copyright in trade. In this part,five important issues are analyzed,including the form of assignment of copyright,the way of public summons of assignment of copyright,the author's non-infringement guarantee and the auction of copyright,the impact of the system of assignment of copyright on the market of books. Among large numbers of copyright trade projects,it is found that most of copyrights are controlled in the hands of publishing houses in developed countries like the United States. After analyzing the reasons for the growth of this phenomenon,it concludes that the Chinese copyright law before the 2001 amendment constrained the development of the market of books by taking copyright license as the only choice,and the amended copyright law which introduced the system of assignment of copyright,will facilitate and enhance the participation of China's publishing houses in the international copyright trade.The final part focuses on the issue of how to improve the system of assignment of copyright in China. It analyzes the shortcomings of the copyright law before amendment caused by the lack of the system of assignment of copyright,and the remaining imperfect areas after amendment. On the basis of those analyses,some legal proposals are suggested on how to imp...