On The Improvement Of Copyright Criminal Protection Legislation In China

Criminal law protection for copyright is one of the hot issues which brings to common concerns by the international community. It’s also a major issue on the process of building China’s socialist market economy and advanced culture. From the relevant provisions of the Penal Code and the Copyright Act, the object behavior and actors and other crime elements of copyright infringement crime are clearly defined, which signify the establishment of the Criminal law protection system for copyright. However, to protect the copyright from the current, practical needs, as well as the requirements of the International Convention on Punishment of the Crime of copyright point of view, our country there are still inadequacies of the provisions of the copyright infringement a crime, to some extent, affect the effectiveness of the Legal Protection of Copyrights and the United States. EU and other countries and international organizations have accused China’s copyright protection ineffective excuse, In view of this it is necessary to conduct in‐depth study.This thesis aims to discuss issues of criminal protection legislation for Copyright in China, and this thesis is mainly composed of the following four components: The first part is an overview of copyright and copyright infringement crimes. In this section, I define and clarify the definition and object of copyright, and also the relations of copyright and author’ right. I comb the development process of the copyright system and analyze the important value of the copyright system. I introduce the concept of copyright infringement crime, the features and the causes of the features. I analyze the harm of copyright infringement crime to society and demonstrate the need for copyright criminal protection.The second part is the comparative study of Sino‐US copyright criminal protection. In This section, the author has mainly taken a comparative approach. On the basis of inspecting, comparing, analyzing of a large number of Chinese and foreign materials, the author reviewed the historical evolution of Sino‐US copyright criminal protection legislation. And the author choose five aspects of Sino‐US copyright criminal protection which consists values, legislation mode, the scope of protection, guilt design, the penalty set, to conduct full, detailed comparative analysis.The third part is a reflection of copyright legislation in Chinese criminal law. According to the combing of the basic knowledge of the copyright infringement crime and comparing and analyzing of Sino‐US copyright criminal protection from the first two parts, the reader can have a more clear understanding and grasp of copyright criminal protection in China. On this basis, the author bases on the actual situation of China and other advanced countries of the world reflecting on our copyright criminal protection legislation. Right now China’s copyright criminal protection has the following defects, namely, the value orientation is biased, the legislative mode is centralized, the scope of protection is narrow, the guilt is not reasonably designed, the penalties set is not scientific.The fourth part is on the improvement of China’s copyright criminal protection legislation. In this section, I offer proposals on the improvement of China’s copyright criminal protection legislation. The author believes that on the value orientation of China’s copyright criminal protection, it should be based on the position of rights‐based, focus on protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the copyright holder; should implement different protecting strategies according to different situations to achieve the organic unity of strong protection and weak protection. On legislative mode, it should be changed from centralized legislative mode to combination mode. On the scope of protection, it should expand the scope of protection, to adjust and expand the types of crime and content of copyright crime, and to add new charges, to expand the scope of protection of the personal right of copyright and neighboring rights. On the constitutive requirements, it should cancel the financial gain purpose which is a necessary element of the establishment of copyright infringement crime; the "reproducing and distributing" in section217of the Penal Code should be amended as “reproducing or reproducing and distributing”; stipulating illegally disseminating works through networks or rent to public as independent crime; to adjust and expand the conviction and sentencing plots of copyright infringement crime. On the penalty configurations, to further improve the penalties set of copyright crime, focusing on the use of the fine, and non‐punitive penalties for copyright infringement crime should be provided.