Study On Copyright Protection About Musical Works In Network Environment

Music is Organized tone created by human,its basic elements are rhythm and melody. To become musical works, music shall comply with the requirements of the Copyright Law of the works.But music-related provisions of the Copyright Act in addition to "musical work", and "sound recordings". There is a very close relationship between musical work and sound recordings.Because music is auditory art,there are two musical works substances manifestations.Because less work is limited by the conditions of listening to music,musical works broad audience than any other work,which can bring more economic benefits to the copyright owners of musical works.But when the threat coming,musical works will suffer more.This threat is the rise and development of the network.In network environment,musical works can be copied without loss,and propagated easily and quickly.Network environment break the traditional music industry chain,gave birth to a new business model.Network service providers have joined the music industry chain,and internet users also can propagate musical works.So the copyright holders can’t control the propagation of musical works,their rights can’t be achieved.But infringement become easier. When the infringement occurred,it is difficult to copyright holders to defend the rights.And network also have affected the copyright itself,the development of network environment make these problems become more complex.Briefly speaking,network have affected both music industry and exclusive rights of copyright.From current legislation in our country,there are some propagation behavior can’t be regulated:listen to music online,the propagation behavior of internet music radio,there is deviation on comprehension of "safe harbor"rules,and rights arrangements of producers of sound recordings and performers are not reasonable.From the point of view of judicial practice,the main features of the cases that copyright holders of musical works defended right is high winning rate,but the amount of compensation is low.The dilemmas in practice are the following three areas.First, it is difficult for the court to balance the interests of the technical side and the copyright holders. Second,losses are difficult to be calculated. And last,copyright holders can’t obtain evidence easily.Because America is in a leading position on copyright protection in network environment,we can get some inspiration from American legislation and judicial precedents that some disputes between copyright holders of musical works and network service providers.We can get the following inspiration from legislative experience of America:legislation should be forward-looking and maneuverability,the interests of copyright holders internal structures should be coordinated.And American judicial experience inspires us that the court should judge neutrally,the copyright holders should be moderate when defending rights, and network service providers should respect copyright and use musical works with legal manners when developing new business model.Based on these discussions,we can perfect the measures of copyright protection of musical works in network environment from legislation and judicial.It is need to improve:integrate broadcasting rights and the right to network dissemination of information,adjust the right structure of producers of sound recordings and performers.But about temporary copy,it is better to defend the status quo,because we have not prepared well both in theory and practice.We can improve the judicial practice from the following aspects:increase the compensation to solve the problem of inadequate judicial protection;obtain evidence objectively and legally.