Study Of The Right Of Attribution On Copyright Law

The right of attribution is one of the moral rights provided under Article6bis ofthe Berne Convention. It is often referred to as the “paternity” right, which alludes thespiritual kinship between the work and its creator. However, in the current Chinesecopyright legislation and judicial practice, there are differences in many importantissues related to the right of attribution, such as the nature of the right of attribution,the nature and the necessary elements of the author to sign its name, the infringementof the right of attribution. At the same time, the jurists found it was difficult to draw amore consistent view of the above problems. Therefore, the paper will mainly focuson these issues related to the right of attribution. The author hopes to provide a usefulreference to the legal research as well as the Chinese copyright legislation and judicialpractice.This article divides into five parts as a whole:The first part is the introduction of this thesis. Beginning with a case, this partmainly talks about the brief of the issues related to the right of attribution.The second part mainly studies the basic theory of the right of attribution.Beginning with the concept and historical evolution of the right of attribution, thispart discusses the differences between the right of attribution and the general personalrights in civil law as well as the right against false attribution. Finally, by questioningthe traditional duality theory of the moral rights, the author points out anddemonstrates that the right of attribution is a negative right, which is a "shield"conferred by the law to the author to fight against the infringement of the freedom toattribution.The third part mainly studies the nature of the act of attribution. Firstly, theauthor researches what kind of behavior constitutes an attribution, whether the act ofattribution must be exercised by the author, whether the qualifications of attributioncan be transferred, and then tries to point out the essential constituents of the act of attribution. Secondly, the author researches the legal nature of the act of attribution,and then points out that the act itself does not cause changes in the civil law relations,and the act of attribution de facto is the coat of the right. Finally, the author discussesthe evidential effectiveness of the act of attribution.The fourth part mainly studies the attribution issues in special types of works.With the research of related cases, the author discusses the special problems in thecinematographic works, joint works, and the works of celebrity autobiography, andgives corresponding countermeasures and legal advice. Finally, beginning with theresearch of the Wikipedia co-creator mode, the author discusses the challenges fromthe change of the way of creation during new Internet age to the traditional moralrights of authorship, and points out the attitudes and principles that the copyrightlegislation should take to deal with the change of the times, as well as the progress ofscience and technology.The fifth part is the conclusion of the paper. Combined with the review on thelatest amendment draft of the Chinese Copyright Law submitted by the NationalCopyright Administration, the author summarizes the main ideas of the whole thesis.