Research On The Collective Management System Of Music Copyright In China

In the digital era of global economy,the leap-forward development of digital technology has driven the epochal changes in the creation of musical works,the creation of musical works is endless,the line between creators and users is blurring.At the same time,the industrialization of digital music has also created a historic innovation in the way of dissemination and use of musical works,and the potential users’ demand for musical works has grown exponentially.Considering the cost and benefit of rational economic man,users have put forward new efficiency requirements for using other people’s works.However,under the huge economic dividends brought about by the development of digital technology,the rights holders of works have also expressed new expectations for the licensing efficiency of licensing their works for others to use in exchange for economic returns and making up for the cost of creation.As a result,the most intense contradiction in the digital age emerges—the contradiction between the efficiency of dissemination of works and the efficiency of licensing.Looking at domestic and foreign countries,in order to achieve a balance between the needs of both parties,it has become a common practice to use the intermediate bridge of copyright collective management organizations for management.However,there is still a gap between the development of China’s copyright collective management system and the expectations of the public,and its representativeness is far from the level that the system should be created.Considering the origin of the system,the music copyright collective management system has its own unique historical development foundation.Economic development has spawned a large number of entities with strong capital,who use their strong economic strength to arbitrarily infringe weak traders,resulting in the fact that the status of economic entities in society is unequal.In order to protect their own interests,creators united to create the first collective management organization.However,with the further development of the economy,the policy of strong protection for creators has gradually revealed drawbacks.In order to maintain the public’s demand for works,the collective management of copyright is gradually moving towards the era of achieving group welfare as the goal.At the same time,the collective management system of music copyright has assumed the value of economic function and balance of interests in reducing the transaction costs of the rights and users due to the dissemination and use of the works since its inception.However,in the era of digital economy,the development of China’s copyright collective management system is not ideal,and there are many practical difficulties in the music copyright collective management system in practice.The collection and distribution standards of licensing fees related to the core interests of the right holders and users lag behind the degree of economic development,coupled with the backward management mechanism in the collective management system,the lack of openness and transparency and the lack of dispute settlement mechanism of the fee,all lead to the dissatisfaction of the right holders and users.This dissatisfaction is also reflected in the serious crisis of confidence faced by collective management organizations.China’s existing laws set collective management organizations as a statutory monopoly model,and stipulates the authorization of the right holder as an exclusive license,restricting the right holder’s right to implement individual licenses outside the collective management organization,which has aroused widespread criticism and questioning in the theoretical circles and seriously affected the credibility of the collective management organization.Based on the low management efficiency of existing collective management organizations and the existence of a serious crisis of trust,most of the right holders are reluctant to join collective management organizations,resulting in a serious lack of representation of collective management organizations.The support of digital technology has made it possible for rights holders to manage individually,and in fact has spawned a large number of copyright agency companies,which exercise a role similar to collective management organizations,but their status is not recognized by judicial practice.In view of the above practical difficulties,from a macro perspective,China should adhere to the existing monopoly model,introduce an extended collective management system and a mandatory collective management system in addition to the existing voluntary collective management system,and apply them in parallel to their respective scopes.Judging from the development of the current representative of the music copyright collective management system,the Music Authors Association,my country’s collective management organizations do not actually have and cannot abuse their monopoly position,and the distrust of the rights and users in the collective management organization is caused by the current collective management system.It is caused by its own defects,not the monopoly model.In addition,opening up competition will only further expand the use cost of users,and cannot play a "cure" effect.Therefore,when the existing collective management system can be solved,the monopoly model is obviously more beneficial to users and rights holders.In view of the huge use demand for music works by the self-service song ordering system in the karaoke field and the wide and convenient replication in the digital era,there is a strong practical demand in China to learn from the extended collective management system.At the same time,in view of the vacancy in the realization mechanism of the right to remuneration for rights holders under the statutory license for a long time and the lack of the realization mechanism for the right to remuneration stipulated by the new Copyright Law for sound recording producers,the introduction of mandatory collective management is also meaningful.From a microscopic point of view,the collective management system of music copyright in China should be improved.First,it is necessary to reform the traditional mode of exclusive licensing and authorization,allowing the right holder to still have the right to implement individual licenses to users after authorizing the collective management organization;secondly,it is necessary to clarify the respective scope of application of the extended collective management system and the compulsory collective management system;Third,for the newly established extensibility and mandatory collective management system,specific internal mechanisms should be established,especially for the protection of the interests of non-members,so as to avoid the real abuse of their monopoly position by copyright collective management organizations;Finally,it is necessary to build and improve the supervision and constraint mechanism of collective management,not only to establish an effective supervision body,but also to supervise the formulation,collection and transfer of royalties related to the core interests of rights holders and users,as well as dispute resolution mechanisms,so as to truly reflect the voice of rights holders and users.