Research On The Copyright Ownership System Of Journalistic Works Made For Hire

The establishment and revision of the copyright system are extremely correlated to the evolution of media technology.In the digital era,the upgrade of media technology has brought about the rise of we-media,social media,and news aggregation platforms.Facing the severe challenge of the new media,it is urgent for the traditional news media such as newspaper offices,periodical press,news services,and radio stations to control the journalistic works made for hire by the copyright system.Unfortunately,the traditional copyright ownership system can not guarantee the stability of journalistic works made for hire ownership,which makes the licensing efficiency and safeguarding efficiency low.Therefore,the traditional news media can only hope that a new system will be introduced to alleviate their plight,and the ownership system of journalistic works made for hire is born under this background.Under the adjustment of the current system,the journalistic works made for hire are qualitative as "special works-made-for-hire",news creators only reserve the right of authorship,copyright rights default belong to the news unit,ruled out the space of private autonomy,and triggered controversy.The disputes between the academic community and industrial community can be summed up as three points:the current system on the value orientation should choose to inspire the creator or the media;The current system should choose "convention priority" or "legal priority" in the allocation of rights.How to improve the design of the provisions in the current system.This study aims to clarify the advantages and disadvantages of the current system and put forward the idea of improving the system.The current system is questioned because it allocates most of the copyright rights to traditional news media to form an incentive mechanism.However,a general survey of relevant legislation outside the region shows that it is a general trend to take care of traditional news media in system design.By reviewing the historical evolution of the copyright system and works-made-for-hire system,it can be seen that investors are often the ones who break the balance of interests and are the most active promoter of a new system,and legislators who consider efficiency usually take investors as the main incentive object.Therefore,even if the incentive mechanism constructed by the current system is not conducive to the creation and expression of freedom,according to the experience of overseas legislation and system evolution,based on the reality of the current imbalance of interests in the news industry,we should persist in encouraging news media.But there are doubts about the desirability of the incentives in the current system.By summarizing the author’s right system,copyright system,and the rights allocation mode of international convention rules,we can see that it is an international consensus to allow private autonomy,and the current system is contrary to it.After analyzing the current system with the efficiency theory of economics,it can be seen that the static allocation of rights in the current system conforms to the efficiency principle,but the dynamic allocation of rights does not reach the optimal efficiency because private autonomy is not allowed.Besides the dispute of incentive objects and the allocation mode of rights,the provision design of the current system has old problems and hidden worries.On the one hand,the current provision design retains the stubborn disease of the traditional works made for hire system,fails to clarify the direction of the creator’s moral right,and it is difficult to distinguish the journalistic works made for the legal entity from the journalistic works made for hire.On the other hand,the current provisions are designed to reduce the rights and interests of creators,which is difficult to adapt to the mode of labor dispatch,fails to accurately respond to the media’s demand for rights protection,and fails to solve the plight of orphan works.Based on insisting on encouraging traditional news media and optimizing the mode of right allocation,this paper puts forward the concept and measures of perfecting the system.As far as the concept is concerned,the improvement of the system ought to be based on the reality of China,prudently draw lessons from foreign experience,abandon the attitude of mechanically borrowing and avoid repeating the mistakes of the system of legal entity works.The perfection of the system should adhere to the value orientation of protecting copyright to promote industrial development and not carry too much value from public law.Simultaneously,the system should adhere to the core of private law and reserve enough space for autonomy for market subjects.In terms of means,due consideration should be given to the reasonable demands of the creators to assemble and publish their works and entrusts the creators with compilation rights.Refer to the rules of the Patent Law to design an operational award clause;Retain the "principle of being regarded as the author" in the works made for the legal entity system and integrate the works made for the legal entity system and journalistic works made for hire system;To construct the right ownership model of "agreement first,law second",which can protect the rights of works,stimulate the news market and achieve true meanings of autonomy.