Digital Technologies And The Moral Rights In The Internet Environment Is A Comparative Study

Academes debate persistently upon the value of moral rights. Some insist that moral rights belong to economic rights,some consider the moral rights hamper the development of information industry.From the view of most nations'legislations of copyright and international copyright treatise, recognizing and protecting the author's moral rights are mainstream and in the dominant position. In accordance with incorporate trend of international copyright protection,common law nations have already prudentially adopted broader statutory schemes granting moral rights for creative works by reference to civil law nations.No matter the trantional situation symbolized by print industry,or the internet circumstance characterized by digital technology,there are permanent substantive characteristics for author's moral rights. First, moral rights are rights of authors, which is to say that only those human beings who actually create the work in question qualify as owners of moral rights. Therefore, corporate entities and employers who hire third parties to create works for them do not qualify as authors. Second, moral rights are rights in copyrightable works similar in structure to economic rights, which is why moral rights law is considered an integral part of copyright law. Third, moral rights are inalienable in the sense that they can be neither transferred to third parties nor relinquished altogether. They are personal to the author.This article includes five parts. Part I of this article provides overview of author's moral rights that introducing the origin of moral rights,approaches taken by Anglo-American and Continental European copyright law and protection of moral rights in international law. Part II of this article presents the relationship between the copyright and progress of technology so as to profoundly analyze the challenges brought by digital technology and internet against the moral rights. Part III of this article disaggregates the contents of author's moral rights from three aspects: some countries'legal practices,fulfillment models of moral rights in digital technology and internet circumstance and specific protection rules of moral rights. Part IV of this article investigates the restriction and exception regulations of moral rights protection in digital technology and internet circumstance,exploring the reasons of exception and restriction,comparison of some countries legislations. Part V of this article reviews the China's legislation and practices of moral rights protection,and provides series of advices and improvement on construction of author's moral rights system in digital technology and internet circumstance.