On The Scope And Ownership Of Audio Visual Works

The Internet era has gradually solved the problems of video storage,dissemination technology and cost,and video hot spot have developed from film and TV dramas to variety shows,online movies,short videos and live sports events,and online games have developed from end-game to hand games.While various short videos bring huge commercial interests,they have also given rise to new hot spots and difficult issues in online copyright disputes.As the controversial focus arising from such copyright disputes mainly focuses on whether the above-mentioned hot videos constitute works protected by copyright law and the specific rights attribution after being recognized as works,the rapid evolution of the sued videos has posed a difficult problem for judicial trials to apply.In addition,in the newly amended Copyright Law,the term "cinematographic works and works created by methods similar to the filming of films" is replaced by "audiovisual works",which are divided into"cinematographic works,television series works" and "other audiovisual works"."The copyright of the former belongs to the producer who is not the subject of creation,while that of the latter is agreed upon,which will further aggravate the difficulty of identifying audiovisual works.In view of the above problems,it is necessary to define the scope of audiovisual works from typical cases as the starting point,and determine that it is a transcendence and development of cinematographic works,and its scope is larger than "cinematographic works and works created by methods similar to the filming of films".In addition,the scope of audiovisual works is defined from the core elements of "originality","fixity" and "motion picture".Secondly,we analyze and compare the rules of the two legal systems and add a presumption of transfer system to the attribution of "film and TV series",so as to better comply with the principle of "author’s copyright".Finally,since it is difficult to distinguish between the two types of audiovisual works in practice due to the adoption of the bifurcation method and the different attribution of rights,the scope of application of "other audiovisual works" is limited to the simple participants and the small amount of funds,and the agreed attribution cannot be against the third parties who have done their duty of reasonable transaction.The scope of application of "other audiovisual works" is limited to simple participants and small amount of capital,and the agreement of attribution cannot be against the third party who has fulfilled the obligation of reasonable transaction,so as to reduce the negative impact brought by the attribution of copyright of audiovisual works in the amended Copyright Law.