Research On The Audiovisual Works Copyright Ownership

With the advancement of technology and the continuous improvement of media quality,audiovisual works have become more and more complex and diverse in its ways of creation and implementation.The proportion of audiovisual works in the cultural industry is gradually increasing and as a result has led to the broadening of its value promotion channels.Most audiovisual works require the integration of creative input and capital resources from numerous subjects.Therefore,audiovisual works share the characteristics of being diverse,contractual and compound,which leads to the added complexity of audiovisual works ownership in Copyright Law.To improve audiovisual works copyright ownership,we need to work from the core concepts and characteristics to properly allocate the rights for each subject and achieve balanced distribution of interest among the subjects.During the third amendment of China’s Copyright Law,we can see in all published revised versions of the law that the term “audiovisual works” has been used to replace the term "Film works and works created using methods similar to film making”.With reference to the definition of "audiovisual works" in international conventions and foreign legislations,this change is in line with the worldwide trend in general.Article 15 in the current Copyright Law is used to regulate the ownership of copyright in audiovisual works.However,in both theory and practice,the provisions in this Article still needs great improvement.Because of this,the ownership of copyright in audiovisual works has become one of the long-discussed topics in the amendment of Copyright Law in recent years.From this,we can conclude that there is great significance in the research of audiovisual works copyright ownership.The analysis on the legislation and judicial situation in China shows there are four main problems in the ownership of copyright in audiovisual works: First is the difficulty to identify the producer and the author of audiovisual works in practice.The current Copyright Law cannot provide clear judgement criterions while the published revised version still does not provide a clear definition as to what is the core subject of copyright in audiovisual works;Second is that in the overall copyright ownership mode of audiovisual works,it is a violation of general principle to take the producer directly as the owner of audiovisual works;Third is that in the copyright ownership rules of works which may be independently used and existing works in the Current Copyright Law,the definition and right exercise rules of works which may be independently used is obscure.Moreover,there is still some space to be discussed about whether the relationship between existing works and the overall audiovisual works which are created on the basis of those can be directly applied to the regulation about ownership in deductive works;Fourth is that there is much controversy in the theory field and in practice about whether and how to introduce a benefit sharing system in legal aspects when it comes to the terms of rules for remuneration of audiovisual works.The regulation about ownership of copyright in audiovisual works in Copyright Law is more mature in some typical foreign countries.While unifying the distribution of copyright ownership into the hands of producers,some countries protect the interests of authors through the rules of remuneration and its supporting systems.These provisions are of great reference value to China.Due to the large number of subjects involved,the adjustment of copyright ownership in audiovisual works will show Domino Effect so the key is to establish a logically consistent system in the whole as well as gradually solving the existing problems.This will effectively balance the rights among the subjects and promote the prosperity of the Chinese audiovisual works industry.From the perspectives of motivation theory and personality theory,definitions for producer and author should be added to clarify the identification standards of the two.In terms of the overall ownership of copyright in audiovisual works,I suggest a distinguishment in the ownership of copyright in different types of audiovisual works,as well as introducing the ownership pattern of the producer as the author and respecting the autonomy of the author and producer.Based on above description and discussion,on the basis of clarifying the concept of works which may be independently used,special regulations about exercising rights for authors should be set out.We should also maintain rigorous standards about rules for remuneration of audiovisual works,keep the current regulations of Copyright Law and do not introduce the system of sharing benefits among authors of audiovisual works.