A Research On The Music Copyright Licensing System In The Network Environment

With the popularity and the rapid development of the Internet in the world, transmission and download music from the network works as a new round of spending hot spots. Development of digital network technology enables people to use musical works faster and in more convenient way, but also has had an impact to the inherent music copyright protection system. Traditional licensing system of music copyright in a network environment looks bloated. Comes as the third revision of our Copyright Law, this article introduces the new problems facing with our country’s music copyright licensing system, and focuses on how to make changes in the music copyright licensing system to better adapt Internet environment. Therefore, This article expands the discussion.This paper consists of introduction, body and conclusion, in which the body is divided into four parts.The first section focuses on the problems and challenges of the music copyright system suffered after facing the Internet. Firstly, taking the amendment of Copyright Law as an opportunity, this part introduces the legislative changes involving music copyright licensing, as well as changes among the contentious issues. Then this part discusses some new problems and challenges facing our country music copyright licensing system resulting from the development of network technology and digital technology, and thus leads to the main content this article will start on.The second part describes the contents of existing music copyright licensing system on the theoretical level, and detailed analysis of the problems and causes facing the different licensing system. Music copyright licensing system includes licensing by authorization, compulsory licensing, and legal licensing. At present, the most important licensing models in China are collective management licensing and statutory licensing. The issues existing in the collective management of license include too strict conditions for establishment of collective management organizations, imperfect fee allocation mechanism charged with license, and the lack of internal dispute resolution mechanism. The problems facing with statutory license are that the proviso makes it almost lost the opportunity to play its due role, and the prerequisite is too rough, not only without a specify way to use the phonograms production based on the statutory license, but also without a definite period after the phonograms production based on the statutory license recorded. Due to all these problems, a divergence comes out between the scholars and practitioners about the "reserving" and "abolishing" of the statutory license system. The author believes that although there are many problems of statutory licensing system, its existence is necessary, and we should make it perfect rather than simply repealing it.The third part inspects American music copyright licensing system from the perspective of comparative study. This section firstly discusses how to define copying behavior in the network environment in America, whereby the scope of what behavior is to define the right of reproduction, needing permission from the copyright holder. Secondly, it analyzes the reasons for settings of the American legal machinery licensing system and its development course. The United States had set the statutory licensing system mainly in order to prevent monopoly, later who becoming the basis for the music industry model and therefore being preserved. This situation is the same as our country facing with, so we can learn something from America. Finally, the part introduces the US copyright collective management organization and management models. The models of the collective management of their performances includes a package of licenses and license for specific programs, users who have different needs for musical works can choose the proper licensing model.The fourth part is the concluding part of this paper, mainly about how to improve our music copyright licensing system. Firstly this part is about how to make our collective management system perfect. The author believes that competition should be introduced to break the highly monopolistic situation, reconstructing the music copyright collective management, and we should develop a fair and reasonable mechanism for licensing fees charging and distribution, and establish internal dispute resolution mechanisms to protect the rights of copyright holders; moreover must strictly limit the scope of applying the collective licensing. Secondly, this part put forward some advice for improving the statutory licensing system. On the conflict of the “reserving” and “abolishing”, the author believe that the statutory licensing system should be retained and made perfect in details, such as deleting the saving clause, and making the way clear to use phonograms production under statutory license.