Study On Issues Of The Right Of Authorship

The right of authorship is one of the author’s important moral rights endowedby the6th Article of the Berne Convention. It is the core of the author’s personalrights because the action of signature can reflect the close links between the worksand the author best. China’s Copyright Laws also have made provisions on the right ofauthorship. However, due to the different origins of moral rights in civil law systemand common law system’s works,there exists different views on the nature of theworks’ moral rights all the time.Common law stressed that "incentive" is the principleof legislation, which stimulates the major creator’s enthusiasm, enriches social cultureand generates economic benefits by protecting the author’s property rights. Civil lawsystem is more influenced by "natural rights " and "natural rights theory ",whichholds that the work is extension of the author’s spirit and personality. The differentlegislation bases of the two legal systems also dertermine that they are different inmoral rights legislation later. Theories of both legal systems have been abosorbed inthe legislation process of Chinese Copyright Laws,which leads to some institutionaldisagreements. In terms of authorship, there exsit disputes on issues like nature ofrights, legal properties and constituent requirements,coupled with the diversificationof the work type and creative way in real life, which brings about relevant issues ofthe right of authorship in practice. This thesis discusses the relevant issues about theright of authorship from three groups of cases.The thesis is divided into three parts including the introduction, body andconclusion.The introductory part introduces the properties and characteristics of moral rightsand the right of authorship from the origin of moral rights in the two legal systems. Itproposes that the issues of the right of authorship in various types of works can bewell settled only under the correct understanding and recognition on it. The body part consists of three chapters:Chapter one introduces the authorship issues of commissioned works from twoselected cases.Based on this, it interpretes relevant provisions in the ChineseCopyright Laws and other countries’ view on this issue,who have different legalsystems. It points that the properties of moral rights and the right of authorshipthemselves determine that it can not be transferred freely.In addition, the authorshipright of commissioned work can not be enjoyed by the client through the contract’sfree agreement from the perspective of protecting the author’s rights and the publicinterest.In chapter two, the author bases on the issues of the right of authorship reflectedin the autobiographical works----Pu Yi’s From Emperor to Citizen, firstly categorizingthe autobiographical works, anlyzing its properties and then evaluating the casesmentioned above based on the assessement. It proposes that no matter we start fromthe spirit that "creation is the only source of the copyright", the spirit that "the right ofauthorship belongs to the author" or the spirit that "personal rights cannot betransferred freely", it is an unreasonable provision that the right of authorship of theautobiographical works belongs to the author according to the judicial interpretation.On the basis of the above analysis, the author put forwards the related legislativeproposals.Chapter three also base on the analysis of two cases, which lead to the issue thatwhether the imposture behavior is violating the right of authorship or the right ofname in the end. The author first overviews different understandings on the imposturebehaviour in the Chinese theoretical circles, analyzes the relationship between theright of authorship and the right of name and then analyzes the properties of theimposture behaviour and the right of authorship,proposing that the imposturebehaviour should not be identified as the behaviour violating the right of authorship.Lastly, it proposes relevant suggestions for legislation.The third part is the conclusion. In this chapter, the author summarizes thecorrect application and understanding of the right of authorship based on the firstthree chapters’ analysis.