A Study On The Conflict And Coordination Between Fan Fiction And Original Copyrighted Works

New technologies tend to bring new opportunities to social development,as well as to the general public.Fans of original works desire not only the access to literary and artistic works,but also the deconstruction,reflection and reconstruction of original works.They adopt a different perspective from the original works,with the help of original characters,background and plots,to interpret the various possibilities of originals,which lead to a new form of literary works,namely fan fiction.Authors of fan fiction have dual identities,who are both the cultural consumer and subversives of original works,which puts the original copyright people into a dilemma.On one hand,some elements borrowed from original works may violate the copyright of original workers.On the other hand,fan fiction authors who create and share fan fictions serve as the biggest market for original works,which prompt them to tolerate fan fiction creation.Moreover,not a single country has formulated laws to clearly regulate this form of creation,which enables them wander between the gray area of "illegal and legal".Therefore,this article,starting from the nature of fan fiction and meanwhile drawing experiences from the abroad,attempt to analyze the conflict between fan fiction and the copyright of original work and provide a multi-dimensional interpretation of fan fiction's value,so as to identify the legal status of fan fiction.In the meanwhile,measures are put forward to settle the conflicts between fan fictions and original works as well as their copyright so as to create a free environment for general public to create more literary and artistic works.The thesis is divided into five parts.The first part mainly introduces the concept,characteristics and the current situation of fan fictions in Japan,the United States and China.To create new works based on existed ones has been around for a long time,but it now has developed a distinctive feature in the new era which is known as “fan culture” thanks to the development of mass media technology.Compared with the old form of creation,fan fiction with modern significance has a special creation motive,enjoys extensive popularity and is blessed with t dual identities.The second part offers an analysis to the conflicts between fan fictions and original authors as well as the owners of copyright,and the fair use of fan fictions under the current Chinese Copyright Law.Whether in China or Japan or the UnitedStates,fan fiction is seen as a suspect infringement.The conflict between fan fiction and original copyright finds expression in the right of authorship,integrity,adaptation and right of publicity for fictional characters.Fair use is the best way to defend fan fiction,but the current "Copyright Law" in China takes a regular legislative model,which makes a detailed list of 12 exceptions for fair use.As a result,fan fiction does not have a legal ground in term of fair use.The third part gives a multi-dimensional interpretation to the value of fan fiction.Fan fiction is different from plagiarism,because it sees the original work in another way,a way employed by the public to express their ideas,which hereby has a crucial value in freedom of expression.For the market of original works,fan fiction authors are fans with much more loyalty than ordinary customers.What's more,fan fiction serves as another way to consume culture works,which is beneficial to the market of original works.Besides,original works offer enormous learning material for fan fiction,and in return the huge text productivity of fan fiction authors greatly enriches the contents of social culture,which has significant cultural value.The process of creation is also a learning process for fan fiction authors,which means the creation of fan fiction can be considered as an informal form of education that is significant to nurture the next generation of writers.The fourth part is the comparative study of the coordination between fan fiction and original works.The copyright protection in the United States is very strict,but there is not any real case of fan fiction.Many scholars in the United States advocate that the fan fiction is applicable for fair use,while some scholars argue that it is necessary to use compulsory license to coordinate the conflict between fan fictions and original works.In Japan,which has a highly developed animation industry,the development of dojinshi to some extent has boosted the sales of original works,and hence dojinshi has won tolerance from the majority of the original authors and the Japanese government has launched copyright policy to encourage re-creation.Both of them have granted tolerance to fan fiction in consideration of industry development or public interest,which can be used as a reference for China to solve the conflicts between fan fiction and original authors as well as the copyright owners.The fifth part puts forward some suggestions on how to solve the conflict between fan fictions and original works.From the economic point of view,the creation and dissemination of fan fiction confirms with the Pareto effect,which is not only beneficial to the market of original works,but also allows the general public toactively participate in literary creation.Therefore,this thesis believes that adapted fan fiction is applicable for fair use.Fair use under this context is regarded as a user right,which grants the users of original works and the original copyright owners equal status,namely,the original copyright owner has moral obligations to not prevent users to utilize their works and the user also has the moral obligations to use original works in an honest way and fully respect the characters' image in the original works.According to Rock's labor theory,the author of fan fiction for commercial use should share the benefits arising from it with the original copyright owners.