Research On Legal Protection Mechanism For Copyright Of Digital Music Works

With popularity and development of the Internet, social economy and cultural life of people have been changing in a significant way. The Internet can provide convenient, rapid and extensive information, but it also brings about a difficult question for existing laws. The large amount of information on the Internet serves as the object under the protection of Copyright Law, so protection mechanism of Copyright Law is put under a great impact. Relying on the openness of the Internet, digital music works among such information replaced traditional consumption of music works and became a new mode of consumption in a rapid way, which also caused a large number of infringement issues. In the face of the large amount of Internet infringement disputes(a series of dispute cases involving NetEase Cloud Music, QQ Music and Kugou Music), traditional legal protection mechanism can no longer safeguard lawful rights and interests of copyright owners, network operators and network users in an appropriate way or solve interest disputes among them in an effective way. With the purpose of balancing rights and interests of all parties and promoting healthy development of China’s music industry, our research on the issue of legal protection of digital music works on the Internet has more practical significance.Based on Copyright Law, this paper is divided into four chapters, in which protection of rights of digital music works on the internet is researched through methods of analysis and comparison and combination of real cases:The first chapter contains overview of digital music works, in which development, origin, connotation and characteristics of digital music are introduced, and issues concerning protection of digital music works on the Internet and its significance are put forward.The second chapter describes challenges faced by legal protection of copyright of digital music works, in which scope of legal protection and relief mechanism for traditional forms of music works are introduced. Scope of protection covers personal right and property right of copyright owner, and existing protection mechanism in China is analyzed from different perspectives including Civil Law, Criminal Law and Administrative Law. In the end, several major problems required to be solved in protection of rights concerning digital music works on the Internet are described. For example, how to define nature of temporary reproduction on the Internet? Does exhaustion of rights applicable to the Internet? In addition, this chapter describes some new problems faced by collective management organizations for copyrights and relevant issues concerning protection of moral rights for copyright owners of digital music works.The third chapter describes specific tort liability for copyright of digital music works and reasons for defense. In consideration of the particularity of digital music works, major forms of tort liability, constitutive requirements, application of doctrine of liability fixation as well as liabilities that should be assumed by Internet users and network operators for infringement of rights are specifically analyzed in this chapter. In the last part of this chapter, some reasons for defense commonly used around the world are described, and application of fair use doctrine, implied license and safe harbor principle in China is respectively expounded.The fourth chapter describes the route to construction of legal protection mechanism for copyright of digital music works in China. The current situation of legal protection for rights of digital music works in China and some problems occurring in practice are interpreted and analyzed in his chapter. In the last part of this chapter, from the perspectives of substantive law, procedural law and functions which should be realized by collective management organizations for copyrights, some suggestions are put forward based on the current situation in China.