Study On Protection Of Right Of Retransmission Of Broadcasting Organizations

The development of internet technology has deeply influenced the way of broadcasting,and thus changes the beneficial income of broadcasting organization.At present,during the third revision period of Chinese Copyright Law,it is necessary to reflect and revise the provisions of broadcasters' right of retransmission in order to comply with the trend of legislation of the international convention and the development of Internet technology.The main part is composed of four chapters.The main contents are as follows.Chapter 1 is an overview of the right of retransmission of a broadcaster.Broadcaster's right of retransmission is that the broadcasting organization has the right to control other subjects to retransmit the signal simultaneously.The right of retransmission of broadcasters are different from the right of broadcasting of copyright owners.Moreover,the right of retransmission of broadcasters have distinction from the right of broadcasting post fixation and the right of information network dissemination.The significance of protecting the right of retransmission of broadcasting organizations is that the broadcasters have the right to sue the infringers when the signals are pirated.Furthermore,the broadcasting organization has right to authorize other entities to retransmit the signal legally and gain license fees to make up for the cost of signals production.And granting broadcasters the right of retransmission also encourages them to better serve the public and prompt the development of cultural industry.The second chapter mainly introduces the earlier international legislation on the right of retransmission of broadcasting organizations.This chapter first analyses the legislation of three international conventions.Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers,Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations,Brussels Convention Relating to the Distribution of Programme Carrying Signals Transmitted by Satellite and Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights all stipulate that broadcasting organizations have the right to control wireless retransmission.And the domestic legislation of many countries such as the United Kingdom,Switzerland,Spain and Germany have extended the protection on the right of retransmission of broadcasting organization to the network environment.The third chapter depicts challenges of broadcasters with narrow scope of right of retransmission and responses of international society to this situation.Internet piracy of signal has repeatedly happened,And the number of audiences of watching TV programs is decreasing,therefore the advertisement revenue of the broadcasters and subscription fee of cable TV available for them is reducing,and their interests has been harmed.Furthermore,the cost of producing broadcast signals is high.And broadcasting organizations can earn revenue by licensing signals retransmission to recoup the investment in the production of signals.Once broadcasting organizations have no right to control network retransmission,they will be in a situation when they license other websites to retransmit signals without the right of online retransmission.And the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights under the World Intellectual Property Organization has met since the end of the 20 th century to discuss the legislation of the WIPO Convention on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations to protect broadcasting organizations in the internet environment.Currently,after long discussion delegations have initially reached an agreement that broadcasters shall be authorized to control online retransmission from online piracy.The fourth chapter analyzes the status quo of protection on the right of retransmission of broadcasting organizations in China,and make legislative proposals in conjunction with the third revision of Copyright Law.From the current situation of China's legislation,broadcasting organizations have no right to control network retransmission.In the current judicial situation,because of the lack of controlling the network retransmission,the judicial authority often the behavior of internet signal piracy as unfair competition.However,protection on the interests of broadcasting organizations by Anti-Unfair Competition Law have its own flaws.According to the labor rights theory and the principle of fairness,the broadcasting organization shall take the provision of Copyright Law as right authority to forbid the network piracy.Therefore,the protection on the right of retransmission of the broadcasting organization should be expanded to the network retransmission.Accordingly,in the third revision of Copyright Law,the author proposes to revise the provision of the right of retransmission in Copyright Law to allow other entities to retransmit its signals in any way including wireless,cable and computer networks.