Study On Copyrightability Of Works Of Applied Art

Works of applied art are one of the literary and artistic works protected by the Berne Convention and are protected to varying degrees in the copyright laws of various countries.China's Copyright Law has not made provisions for works of applied art,which has brought opportunities for infringers,and it has also caused chaos in the judicial practice.In the context of the third revision of the Copyright Law,the revised draft first included the protection of works of applied art in the copyright law,but did not involve deeper issues.The issue of copyrightability is still very controversial.Works of applied arts are the combination of practical functions and artistic expressions,and the artistic expressions are in line with the original intellectual achievements of the works.Unlike practical works of art,they focus on the attributes of works rather than the product attributes in the general sense.The possession of a certain practical function is a distinction between a works of applied of art and a general work.Since the copyright law does not protect the practical function,there are certain obstacles to the application of the general principle of copyrightabliy.Since the current copyright law does not clarify that the works of applied art are the objects of the copyright law,they are often regarded as art works for protection in judicial practice,and their copyright standards are not unified.The judgment of copyrightablity in the works of applied art in China should be based on the principle of separation,and finally fall on the judgment of the artistic expression of originality.The separation of practical functions from artistic expression is the first step in the judgment of the validity of works of applied art.It should be based on the separation principle of “physically separable and conceptually separable” in the US copyright law to explore the specific standard of separation applicable to China.The specific judgment criteria of China's separation principle should be "physically inseparable,conceptually separable".A “physically separable”part of its art that is protected in accordance with a work of art.“conceptually separable” to adopt alternative design method to judge.After the separation of practicality and artistry,artistic expression of originality Judging the second step of judging the copyrightability of works of applied art is different from art works.The creation of works of applied art is limited by practical functions and large-scale production.The originality standard should be lower than that of art works,The height of artistic creation is not appropriate,and the original judgment of practical works of art should exclude the height of artistic creation.