Research On Copyright Infringement Recognition Of Fan Fiction

Fan fiction is a new type of works which emerged with the popularity of the Internet.It originated from Japan's fan fiction and gradually formed fanfic culture in various countries.Since the creation of fan fictions has involved some elements of the original works,but most of them have not obtained the authorization of the original author,it is inevitable that fan fiction will infringe the copyright of the original author.In fact,fan fiction is neither the copy or plagiarism of the original work,nor the deduction of it,thus,the key of this problem is how to detennine whether a fan fiction's author constitutes infringement or not.To ensure the protection of the original authors,and to encourage the development of fan fiction culture,and at the same time eliminate the possible negative influence of it,it is necessary to clarify the infringement determination of fan fiction.In this paper,the author gives a relatively comprehensive demonstration about fan fiction's copyright infringement through three parts and focuses on the identification methods.The first part mainly introduces the possible infringement forms of fan fiction.Firstly,it should be made clear that fan fictions are works protected by the copyright law,and it can be divided into derivative works and non-derivative works.What's more,non-derivative works may easily cause copyright infringement problems,such as the right of authorship,the right of integrity,and the right of adaptation.The second part introduces the rules and regulatory means about how to identify copyright infringement of fan fiction in the United States and Germany.However,China has no legal provisions of copyright law on the fan fiction,and even no actual cases to guide us.As a result,it is nearly impossible to determine accurately whether a fan fiction infringes the original copyright or not,and this problem has caused a heated discussion in China's academic circles.For example,what are the identification standards of copycat infringement and what factors should be taken into account.The third part draws on the experience of the infringement identification of fan fiction both at home and abroad,and puts forward a few methods on how to optimize them in china.That is,the original works must have originality and are protected by copyright law.Moreover,the authors of fan fictions have the possibility or presumed possibility of contacting the original work.Then,eliminate the parts of both thoughts and public domains by using " syllogism of tort determination".Finally,the whole and part comparison method will be used to compare the substantial similarities of the remaining parts.However,due to its numerous types and different attributes,there are some disparities in both methods and requirements when judging the substantial similarity.Therefore,the author suggests that the fan fiction should be classified into four types:text works,animation works,music works and fanfic games.Thus,the identification of infringement of fan fictions will be more specific and explicit.