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The Development Of Copyright Industries And Copyright Trade: From The U.s. Experience

Posted on:2004-08-19Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:Q ZhangFull Text:PDF
GTID:2206360092487442Subject:International trade
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
As one of the most important parts of Intellectual Property, copyright has become an indispensable legal system in the current society. Thanks to the stronger protection and enforcement for it, we can now enjoy the flourishing culture of the human being; Simultaneously, the copyright-based industries and international trade are significantly regarded as the driving-force for the development of this creative world, which is now called the time of Knowledge Economy and Information Economy. According to the annual study by Economists Incorporated for the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), over the last twenty-four years, the fast growing copyright industries have been playing a leading role in the U.S. economy and have proven to be a major impact on the growth of the U.S. economy, based on three economic indicators----value added to gross domestic product (GDP); share of national employment; and revenues generated from foreign sales and exports. Also, the copyright-based industries' importance demonstrated in China's economy cannot be ignored either. However, the government paid too much attention to the cultural attribute of the copyright-based industries instead of their economic attribute. So most administrations and supervisions were enforced on the control of ideology, overlooking the significance of the copyright as an individual industry. Therefore, China keeps very poor statistics relating to the copyright-based industries. Whereas, this writing tries to make a comparative study on the development of the copyright industries between China and U.S., looking forward to find out the differences, sum up the achievements, figure out the problems and put forward the solutions. It was in 1977 that copyright was defined as an individual industry for the first time in U.S.. According to the annual report of IIPA, over the years from 1977 to 2001, the copyright industries continued to grow at a rate higher than the other segments of the U.S. economy as well as the Gross Domestic Product. For example, in 2001, the core copyright industries contributed an estimated $535.1 billion to the U.S. economy, accounting for approximately 5.24% of GDP, which alone were larger than any individual industry in the manufacturing sector, and even larger than the manufacturing industries combined. In China, the given copyright-based industries are only referred to the press and publishing industry, including book publishing, newspapers and periodicals, music publishing, and e-publishing as well. In 2001, the press and publishing industry contributed ¥5.338 billion to GDP, becoming one of the most profitable industries, with its sales higher than tobacco, chemicals, plastic, food-processing and others. Ifthe other copyright-related sectors, such as printing, photocopying, distribution, publications' foreign trade, advertising, film and software, etc., were put into consideration, the value added could be estimated to approach ¥500 million, reaching approximately 5% of GDP. However, the huge gap of the copyright industries between China and U.S. is still striking. For example, only in 2001, the value added of the U.S. copyright industries, hitting $791.2 billion, was equivalent to 68% of China's GDP. Even though, taking a look at the growth rate of the certain economic indicators, China can expect a greater potential ahead with an ever-increasing range and an ever-fast growing rate of the copyright-based industries while U.S. behaves comparatively less active in spite of its former fast growth rate. Playing a significant role in the copyright industries, copyright trade has been a great contributor to the sustainable development of the industries. But in China, both the size of copyright-based foreign trade and the profit related are obviously lower than those of U.S., while a huge trade deficit is existing at the same time. So its foreign sales contributed very little to the copyright-based industries. On the contrary, the foreign sales and exports made by the four maj...
Keywords/Search Tags:Copyright, Copyright Industries, Copyright Trade, Copyright Protection, World Trade Organization (WTO)
PDF Full Text Request
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