A Study Of The Protection Of The Copyright Law Of Television Program Format

From the perspective of communication,television program format refers to the internal connection of a variety of programming content and form of the production elements of the whole,its procedures and frameworks can be refined enough to be directly into the structure of the program.TV program format must consist of fixed and recurring program elements,identifiable,capable of concatenating the entire contents of the program.The high degree of creativity and great commercial value of the TV program model has made it the new favorite of the television media industry.The TV program model has been in Europe and has been sweeping the world.Driven by economic interests,plagiarism,imitation and other unfair behavior accompanied by legal protection of the inevitable involvement of potential.In view of the TV program mode and works of natural resemblance,from the copyright point of view to protect them as the primary choice.However,not all conforms to the work characteristic,even in the model trading under the situation of internationalization,still did not form a unified protection system.So,program format is in accordance with the copyright law in the sense of work,each country is divided.The Netherlands as a most developed country in program format of creative,is admit program mode is protected by copyright law;And is also a part of the state in the United States believes that as long as it conforms to the characteristic can be obtained shall be protected by the law;United Kingdom that is stated if the television is consistent with copyright law plays or written works copyright legal type,such as element,with original and copy to obtain copyright protection.In addition,in the case did not recognize the program format to work,also stands for program format trademark law,patent law,trade secrets,contract law and the anti-unfair competition law,protected mode.Due to the varying nature on program format and protected format is not unified,constitute obstacles to program format included in the copyright law.TV program format itself and the current copyright law,"writing","theatrical works" and the copyright law to amend the draft of the "audio-visual works" have the intersection,through ditterent types of channels,the degree of protection of television program mode will be different.The first point of view,the TV program format through the "writing" to achieve protection,then it must meet the intellectual achievements,replicability and originality of the three elements,which,"Program Collection" as the text,the theme style,production process,Game design,story ideas and other elements of the design and presentation constitute a written expression,can be protected by copyright law.In the second view,the television program mode is protected by means of the "dramatic work" approach,which requires a high degree of fixity and discernibility because of the multiplicity of the theatrical works.If the relevant elements of the program pattern are fixed and consistent with the works Of the three elements,its composition "expression" can also be protected.The third view,the TV program mode through the "audio-visual works" approach to achieve protection,because the program mode is ultimately through the sound and the screen with the video playback,the video as a television program carrier,can be well presented The design and arrangement of the elements can constitute "expression" in the sense of copyright law.If the "expression" meets the requirements of originality,it can be protected by the copyright law,the copyright law and the copyright law.Of the protection.From the development trend of copyright law and the characteristics of TV program mode,it is more suitable to protect TV program mode mainly by "TV and audio works",which is the protection mode of copyright protection."Television Program Format" is consistent with the characteristics of works in copyright law required subjects of rights,rights to program format scope,infringement standards framework to regulate,mainly according to the existing legislation,as well as general provisions of copyright law,combined with program format feature,empowerment of rights-holders rights to publish,modify and copy right and other rights.On the tort liability,infringement program format "contact +substantial similarity" and "element overwrite" these two standards,specific accountability used to stop the infringing act and discretionary compensation,full use of the positive proof of the parties to resolve disputes program format,minimizing the loss of copyright.