Network Environment, Fair Use Of Copyright System

Fair use rule is extremely important in the copyright law. The intention of the fairuse rule of copyright requests it to bring honor to the balance, and it takes dualmissions of both protecting the copyright and enhancing the development of literatureand science. Fair use rule takes balancing the interest between copyright owners andsocial public as the objective since its birth and from its development. Theharmonious copyrights benefit all members of different social classes. Fair use is oneof the most important systems which realizes and maintains the harmoniouscopyrights. Copyright law experts of various countries emphasize the research andconsummation of the system in order to get the best system to reconcile the copyrightowner's and the social public's interests, the developed countries' and developingcountries' interests.At the same time, fair use also puzzles us and is easy to cause disputes. We cansay that fair use continuously has been puzzling us since it was created. What is fairuse on earth? Is fair use the user's right or the limitation to the copyright owners?These elementary theories of fair use still have not got the conclusion. Moreover, therevolution of dissemination technology causes fair use to adjust unceasingly whichmakes us more difficult to understand and it heats the disputes. Specially, the impacton fair use caused by the revolution of the digital technology and the networkcommunication technology is unprecedented, which even produced two completelyopposite views: one side believes there should be no fair use in the networkenvironment, the other side thinks we can freely use the works created on the internet.In the initial period of network time, because related rules and regulations fallbehind the time and people's consciousness of protecting their rights was not strong,the internet used to be the heaven to pirates. When the copyright owner realized theserious intrusion to their rights, they firstly took technical measures and used networkcontracts to protect themselves. When the effect of these self-saving measures was notideal, they would seek the protection of law. Under the strong advancement ofcopyright owners interest groups, copyright owners' interests obtained unprecedented expansion, while the social public's fair use space reduced gradually. This paper is toanalyze the unreasonable doings of the overcorrecting of copyright protection with thepurpose to regain the lost balance and protect social public's interests better.This paper consists of three parts besides the preface and conclusion.Part one mainly elaborates the copyright fair use rule in the internet environmentfrom three aspects. The first aspect introduces the concept and character of copyrightfair use rule. The second aspect analyzes the present situation of legislation of fair use.It introduces the regulations of copyright fair use in the USA and the Great Britain, inthe international compacts and in china. The third aspect analyzes the value choice offair use rule.Part two elaborates the challenges that the fair use rule is beingfaced with in the internet environment from six aspects.Part three gives propositions to improve the copyright fair use ruleof our country in the internet environment, also from six aspects.Because the connection of the digital technology and the networkcommunication technology brings unprecedented challenges to fair use, the practiceof fair use rule encounters unprecedented crisis in the network environment.We should strengthen fair use under the network environment to correct theunbalanced copyrights. As a developing country, we should not blindly pursue theso-called internationalization of copyright protection in the revision of the copyrightlaw, but we should fully exercise the domestic legislative power in the internationalconvention permission scope in view of own national condition. When the copyrightprotection provisions are added, corresponding fair use provisions should be added inorder that it can serve the national interests, the public benefits, and the standards ofsocial development. In this way we can seek our biggest interests.Under the leadership of this idea, the paper proposes some rough measures toperfect the fair use rule. First of all, the legislation pattern of judgment standard aboutfair use should adopt the mixed pattern. Like this, it does not lose the sense ofprinciple, and has flexibility at the same time. Next the paper suggests that we shoulddevise some exemption provisions to the right of temporary duplication and technical protective measures. At the same time, it suggests that we should also regulate thescope of fair use in the on-line education and the digital library. Finally, the papersuggests that we may introduce fair use into moral rights in order to display thefunction of economic rights of copyrights better.