On The Essence Of The Expression Of Work And The Material Expression Of Work

There are many descriptions of the expression of works in theory,but it is difficult to carry out the research on expression’s actual quality,which is related to the lack of detailed definition of the expression of works in the current law of copyright in China,and the lack of attention to the intellectual property itself in the intellectual property law circle in China.The 2020 Copyright Law has made major revisions to the definition of works.The main significance is: First,it distinguishes between "copy" as the basic concept of work protection and "copy" under the definition of copy right.The former is the "reproduction" of the essence of the work,the latter is a “reproduction” of the material expression of the work;second,the essence of the work under the current definition is expanded from the “external expression form” to the “external expression form” and the “internal expression form”,which makes up for the deduction of the "basic expression" of the original works and the theoretical flaws of the transformative use in the copyright law.The so-called "basic expression" is the internal expression form;third,it emphasizes that the work must be "perceivable" and reaffirms works have nothing to do with the performance,the physical form,duration,manufacturability and other attributes of the work.Although our country’s copyright legislation draws lessons from the author’s right legislation model of the continental law system,the theory of the common law system has a more profound impact on the practice of protection of works in our country.After the revision of the new law,the "Idea/Expression dichotomy" under the utilitarian view of works in the Anglo-American law system is not sufficient to provide more detailed guidance for the study of the essence of expression in Chinese works."Idea/Expression" is a metaphor for objects subject to and not subject to copyright protection.And there is no equivalent replacement relationship between "Idea/Expression" and "Content/Form" in the philosophical sense.The German copyright law further splits the "Expression" in the dichotomy structure of copyright works into external and internal forms of Expression,which can provide a more appropriate analysis tool for the study of the essence of works under the new law of our country,which is more suitable than the dichotomy structure of Anglo-American works.It clearly describes the object of comparison between the essence of the work Expression and the substantial similarity of copyright infringement,and emphasizes the protection of the content of the work.However,the content of works is not a concept in the meaning of copyright law,and copyright law does not pay attention to the different functions and effects of different types of works in the transmission of information.Social semiotics happens to be an analytical tool corresponding to this question.It is a theory that studies signs and their meanings from the perspective of conventions,and provides answers to the relationship between works and the information they convey: works are complex signs under the copyright system,the essence of a work is Expression,and Expression includes external and internal forms of Expression;in social symbol theory,the essence of a work is the information conveyed by the Expression of the work,and the form of expression of the work is the information Container,the content of the work must be expressed in a specific form in order to obtain copyright protection.Therefore,the Expression form of the work and the content of the work have a "one body and two sides" relationship.The changes in the Expression content will be reflected by the Expression form,and the two together constitute the complete work “Expression”,both of them are the object of substantial similarity comparison.At the same time,due to the immaterial nature of the work,the work must rely on the existence of objective material to obtain "perceptibility",and the expression of the work by objective material must rely on a certain means of expression,then this practice of putting the work into the objective material world has its basis.The form of expression of a work is the procedure followed by the means of expression.The implementation of means of expression must be guided by the form of Expression of the work.This is also the reason why the work can be reproduced by different people with different objective substances.It is the material embodiment of the work produced by the means of expression.At the same time,because the means of expression are the practice of human activities,the performance effects achieved by different individuals under the guidance of the same form of Expression are different.This depends on the level of personal skills and abilities,and also reflects the works and works in life.There are reasons for alienation between material expression.In short,the essence of work Expression is an organism constructed by the external Expression form,the internal Expression form and the Expression content,and it is the code of conduct that guides the practice of the means of expression.Finally,the research on the essence of work Expression and its material expression has provided inspiration for the comparison rules of substantive similarity.The duplication relationship means that the two works are substantially identical or equivalent in terms of Expression form and content,and the deductive relationship means that the two works are different from each other in the external Expression form but their internal expression form constitutes a substantial similarity,and the transformative use refers to the use of the external expression form of the previous work by the later work and the content of the later work has a subversive significance to the content of the original work.