The Copyright Law Studies Of The Private Copy Under The Network Environment

The copyright law is shouldering the dual mission to protect the interests of the copyright owner and to safeguard the public interests since the date of its birth. By encouraging the author’s creation and communication with the protection of the owner’s interest, the copy right law promotes the development of human science and culture eventually. Private copying played an important role in balancing copyright owner’s interest and public interest under the traditional condition and, is the basic principle of the copyright law. But with the rapid development of science and technology, the rationality of the private copying issue is being questioned. How to redefine the nature of the private copying and how to deal with the challenge which private copying brings to copyright law under the condition of technology development, are the burning questions in the law of copyright.The first part of this article summarizes the private copying issue. First of all, it introduces the history of private copying from the printing press era to the digital network era. And then it analyzes the concept and characteristics of private copying. In the last, it discusses the new features under the digital network era and the impact of digital technology brings to private copying. Thus it raises the focus of this article, that is how to deal with crisis which digital technology brings.The second part introduces the Private copying problem of American copyright law. By analyzing the history of American copyright case related to private copying such as Williams&Wilkins case, Sony case, it explores how the private copying user takes its legal responsibility under the technological advance. Thus it draws to find out how to balance the interest of private copying user, the copyright owner and the technology provider.The third part analyzes the private copying under network environment that guided by the principle of value equity. It demonstrates the importance of balance of copyright owner, private copying user and technology providers interests from general requirements that "giving priority to efficiency due consideration to fairness" and "reasonable consideration of the relationship between the order, justice and efficiency" and "the interests of equity and compensation". Then it responds to balance measures that "private copying compensation system" and "fair use by the transition to a statutory license" and other new measures under the background of the network environment, thus laying the groundwork for our reference.The fourth part combs the private copying issue under the view of our country’s copyright law and points out the shortage of our country copyright law. It concludes that in order to perfect our private copying issue we need to improve the relevant regulation, remake fair use system and build up a private compensation system with Chinese characteristics.