Research On Improvements Of Copyright Parallel Import Regulation

With the continuous development and maturation of economic globalization and trade liberalization, within international trade, the trade of intellectual property tends to be increasingly active, while the issue of parallel import occurs with high frequencies, thus leading to widespread concern in the international community and the focus of academia. Although various governments held different attitudes towards copyright parallel import, they have taken appropriate measures to maximize their economic interests. Therefore, copyright parallel import is not a purely academic issue, but more importantly, it demands governments to balance interests between protecting their own interests and promoting trade liberalization.The purpose of WTO is to further promote trade liberalization, tariff reductions, and elimination of non-tariff trade barriers, however, non-tariff trade barriers such as the prohibition of copyright parallel import did exist in intellectual property trades, which contradicts with the purpose of WTO. Therefore, while vigorously developing the copyright trade, what needs to be settled urgently is to accomplish and improve the legal standards of the copyright parallel import.At present, laws and regulations on copyright have no clear rules aiming at the issue of parallel import. When it comes to the cases in the field of copyright parallel imports, the judgments of courts are diverse due to the lack of related laws and regulations to follow. This thesis attempts to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the theories concerning copyright parallel import, comprehend international and extraterritorial laws and regulations, and to recognize the status quo of China’s legal system. In this paper, the author put forward some propositions to improve the legislation on copyright parallel importation, hoping to provide some valuable references and suggestions to address this issue.This article is divided into five chapters with the exception of introduction and epilogue:The first chapter discusses the basic introduction of copyright parallel import. The first part of this chapter introduces the concept and legal characteristics of copyright law. Even though China has promulgated the "Copyright Law", but, in accordance with international practice and academia generic term, we’ll refer them to "copyright" collectively. As a civil right, copyright has five characteristics. The second part explains the causes of copyright parallel import. The direct cause of copyright parallel import is the rapid development of copyright trade, while price differences in copyrighted commodities are the inherent power. The principle of national treatment and automatic protection lead to parallel copyright. The third part describes the impact of copyright parallel import, and it will have impacts on parallel importers, domestic licensed or authorized dealers and consumers with different degrees. It has both advantages and disadvantages to national economy.The second chapter analyzes the main theory of copyright parallel import. The core of this chapter is two opposing theoretical basis, i.e. the principle of right exhaustion and the principle of regionality. The principle of right exhaustion holds that parallel import is not an infringing behavior, however, according to the principle of regionality, it certainly is. With the development of theories, theories on the parallel import acquire new breakthroughs, including implied license theory and principle of legitimate economic benefit. Implied license theory, which originated in Anglo-American law, sparks a lot of inspiration. The author then analyzes the deficiencies of the theoretical bases of copyright parallel import. The theoretical bases need to be improved whether it’s principle of right exhaustion or implied license theory.The third chapter examines the international conventions and extraterritorial laws and regulations. The first part of this chapter is to comprehend the major international conventions, such as "Berne Convention", "Universal Copyright Convention" and the TRIPS, especially sections on copyright import. The second part is to explore laws in United States, European Union, Singapore and other countries, and to conduct a brief analysis of the regulatory measures on parallel importation in these countries, in order to provide a useful reference to improve our country’s legislation on the copyright parallel import.The fourth chapter analyzes the status quo of legal regulation to copyright parallel imports in China. The first part of this chapter points out that Chinese "Copyright Law" does not have clear regulations to the copyright parallel import, which impacts the legal practice. The second part describes regulations to the copyright parallel import made by contract law, the author analyzes the issues of interest safeguarding using the theory of implied license. These issues belong to different subjects of legal relation in copyright licensing and sales agreement. The third part analyzes regulations to copyright parallel import made by the Law for Countering Unfair Competition. These regulations go into effect when the free rider problem, identification inconsistentency and quality difference and other problems arise. The fourth part analyzes the regulation to copyright parallel import made by the Anti-monopoly Law, the author points out that the copyright owner can’t abuse their rights. The fifth part analyzes attitudes to copyright parallel import made by the relevant international treaties which China participates in.The fifth chapter describes the institutional propositions to improve our copyright parallel import. The first part poses that we must first clarify the value orientation of laws regulating copyright parallel import. In principle, we should permit this kind of behavior. The second part discusses the basic principles to improve copyright parallel import. The last part put forward specific legislative proposals. The author holds that the basic attitudes to copyright parallel import must be clarified, we should have overall planning to legislation, and gradually modify the relevant legal provisions.