Research On The Right To Authorship Of Fan Fiction

Fan art originated in Japan, and the fan works is a product of fan art which first appeared in the comics field. Fan art has formed a huge scale in a short period of time in China through the opportunity of the network's rapid development.With the participants of the team gradually growing, fan works began to enter more and more people's vision, causing widespread concern in society .Fan fictions enrich the social culture, which not only promotes the use and spread of the original works to a certain extent, but also enhances the popularity of real people. At the same time,the copyright of fan fictions may conflict with someone's prior rights.With the gradual expansion of the influence of the fan fictions, prior rights holders began to turn from tolerance to resort to the law.The conflict of rights between the authors of fan fictions and people with prior rights makes the relationship between the two sides tense and causes constant disputes.On the basis of the introduction and the nature of fan fictions, the article analyzes the conflict between the authors and the prior rights holders, and discusses the institutional obstacles to the protection of the copyrights of the fan fictions in China,and puts forward the way of eliminating institutional barriers,so as to protect the copyright of fan fictions, balance the interests of authors and former rights holders, and let the fan fictions play the role of making prosperity of social culture.In addition to the introduction and conclusion, the article is divided into four chapters:The first chapter is an overview of fan fictions.The fan fictions is a main kind of fan works, and the article defines fan fictions as the re-creation novel by fans based on original or real persons. The fan fictions have the characteristics of creative dependency and subject specificity, which can be divided into original type of fan fictions and real person type of fan fictions according to the different objects.The second chapter is the cognition of the nature of the fan fictions. In view of the copyright law, works can be divided into original works and derivative works. The cognition of the nature of fan fictions should be identified on the basis of distinguishing the original type of fan fictions and the real person type of fan fictions.The original type of fan fictions can be divided into original works and derivative works according to whether it borrowed the protected elements of expression from the original works and whether it's substantially similar to original works on the whole.The real persons which the real person type of fan fictions contain belong to the objective material of the public domain,and the real persons can not have copyright on himself and can not constitute the expression in the works, therefore the real person type of fan fictions belong to the original works.The third chapter is an analysis of the conflict between the copyright of fan fictions and the the prior rights.Because fan fictions have the characteristics of creative dependency ,there will be conflict of rights in the exercise of copyright of fan fictions. In order to better resolve conflicts and prevent disputes, there is a need for an analysis of possible conflicts. The copyright of the original type of fan fictions may conflict with the copyright of the original works, such as the right of integrity and derivative right. The real person type of fan fictions may conflict with the personality rights of the real persons, such as the right of reputation and the right of privacy.The fourth chapter is an analysis of the institutional barriers to the protection of fan fictions in China and the ways of eliminating these barriers.China's current copyright law has limitations, so that the conflict between the authors of fan fictions and the prior rights holders can not be properly resolved, the interests of both sides are unbalanced. Copyright law lacks the general definition of derivative works in our country, and the nature of the works can not be clearly determined, so that the public take the fan fictions as derivative works without distinction, and they think that the fan fictions are the products of the infringement. Because there is no enough restriction on the derivative right,the authorization costs of derivative fan fictions are higher, which will dampen the authors' creative passion to some extent, and even make the authors eventually give up creation. In order to protect the copyright of the fan fictions, the article puts forward that legal basis should be provided for a better protection of fan fictions by adding the concept of derivative works in the copyright law and perfecting the derivative right restriction system in the way of phased protection of deductive rights or legal permission.