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Introduction

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Copyright and Fan Productivity in China

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Abstract

In order to illustrate why fan activities are a problem for copyright and why the options we have are limited in the digital age, it is reasonable to delineate first the challenges that copyright faces today. For that purpose, the next section of this chapter summarizes the problems that copyright has encountered in the digital era and how these problems interact with fans and market interests (Sect. 1.1). The research question is explained in detail after (Sect. 1.2), and the methodology and the outline of the book are delineated in the last section (Sect. 1.3).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    However, economic research indicated that countries with higher levels of IT infrastructure have lower levels of movie piracy. See W.D. Walls, Cross-country Analysis of Movie Piracy, 40 Applied Economics 625, 630 (2008).

  2. 2.

    Henry Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture 12–3 (Routledge. 1992).

  3. 3.

    Id. at 15.

  4. 4.

    Id. at 17–24.

  5. 5.

    See generally William P. Alford, To Steal a Book is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization (Stanford University Press. 1995); Eric Priest, The Future of Music and Film Piracy in China, 21 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 795, 821–829 (2006) (Summarized the problems that copyright owners will face if they were to crack down hard on piracy in China); see also Chris Anderson, Free: The Future of a Radical Price 165 (Hyperion 1st ed. 2009) (“Piracy extends to virtually every industry in China, a combination of the state of development of the country and its legal systems and a Confucian attitude toward intellectual property that makes copying the work of others both a gesture of respect and an essential part of education.”).

  6. 6.

    See generally, William Hennessey, Deconstructing Shanzhai-China’s Copycat Counterculture: Catch Me If You Can, 34 Campbell L. Rev. 609 (2012); See also Robert S. Rogoyski and Kenneth Basin, The Bloody Case That Started From a Parody: American Intellectual Property and the Pursuit of Democratic Ideals in Modern China, 16 UCLA Ent. L. Rev. 237 (2009).

  7. 7.

    See Hye-Kyung Lee, Participatory Media Fandom: A Case Study of Anime Fansubbing, 33 Media, Culture & Society 1131, 1141 (2011) (“…the industry is framing fan subbing as piracy…”).

  8. 8.

    Network neutrality is best defined as a network design principle. The idea is that a maximally useful public information network aspires to treat all content, sites, and platforms equally. See Tim Wu, Network Neutrality FAQ, at http://www.timwu.org/network_neutrality.html; See also Lawrence Lessig, In Support of Network Neutrality, 3 ISJLP 185 (2007).

  9. 9.

    Lawrence Lessig, The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World 249 (Random House 1st ed. 2001).

  10. 10.

    Marci A. Hamilton, The TRIPS Agreement: Imperialistic, Outdated, and Overprotective, 29 Vand. J. Transnat’l L. 613, 613 (1996).

  11. 11.

    Id. at 622.

  12. 12.

    Lawrence Lessig, Code: Version 2.0 121 (Basic Books 2nd ed. 2006).

  13. 13.

    William W. Fisher, Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and The Future of Entertainment 7 (Stanford Law and Politics. 2004).

  14. 14.

    For instance, In the U.S., the pushing of two anti-piracy bills was met with a fierce backlash from its nationals. See Jenna Wortham, Public Outcry Over Antipiracy Bills Began as Grass-Roots Grumbling, N.Y. Times, Jan. 19, 2012, at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/technology/public-outcry-over-antipiracy-bills-began-as-grass-roots-grumbling.html?_r=0. Prof. Reidenberg has indicated that “there will be a significant regulatory backlash against digital rights management for intellectual property.” See Joel Reidenberg, Commentary on Digital Rights Management, 7 Int’l Intell. Prop. L. & Pol’y 53-1, 53-2 (2002).

  15. 15.

    Jack M. Balkin, Digital Speech and Democratic Culture: A Theory of Freedom of Expression for the Information Society, 79 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1, 15 (2004).

  16. 16.

    Edward Lee, Warming up to User-Generated Content, 2008 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1459, 1471–72 (2008).

  17. 17.

    Lessig, supra note 12, at 94.

  18. 18.

    Id. at 223–24.

  19. 19.

    Lee, supra note 16, at 1473.

  20. 20.

    Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave: The Classic Study of Tomorrow 11 (Bantam 1st ed. 1984) (“…Third Wave civilization begins to heal the historic breach between producer and consumer, giving rise to the “prosumer” economics of tomorrow.”).

  21. 21.

    Jenkins, supra note 2, at 284–286.

  22. 22.

    Id. at 291.

  23. 23.

    William W. Fisher, The Implications for Law of User Innovation, 94 Minn. L. Rev. 1417, 1471 (2010).

  24. 24.

    LaToya D. Rembert-Lang, Reinforcing the Tower of Babel: The Impact of Copyright Law on Fansubbing, 2 Intell. Prop. Brief 21 (2010).

  25. 25.

    Jaime E. Muscar, A Winner is Who? Fair Use and the Online Distribution of Manga and Video Game Fan Translations, 9 Vand. J. Ent. & Tech. L. 223 (2006); Nathaniel T. Noda, Copyrights Retold: How Interpretive Rights Foster Creativity and Justify Fan-Based Activities, 20 Seton Hall J. Sports & Ent. L. 131 (2010). Joshua M. Daniels, “Lost in Translation”: Anime, Moral Rights, and Market Failure, 88 B.U. L. Rev. 709 (2008).

  26. 26.

    Salil Mehra, Copyright and Comics in Japan: Does Law Explain Why all the Cartoons My Kid Watches are Japanese Imports?, 55 Rutgers L. Rev. 155 (2002).

  27. 27.

    Sean Kirkpatrick, Like Holding a Bird: What the Prevalence of Fansubbing Can Teach Us About the Use of Strategic Selective Copyright Enforcement, 21 Temp. Envtl. L. & Tech. J. 131 (2003); Nathaniel T. Noda, Perpetuating Cultures: What Fan-Based Activities Can Teach Us About Intangible Cultural Property, 44 Creighton L. Rev. 429 (2011).

  28. 28.

    Sean Leonard, Celebrating Two Decades of Unlawful Progress: Fan Distribution, Proselytization Commons, and the Explosive Growth of Japanese Animation, 12 UCLA Ent. L. Rev. 189 (2005); Nathaniel T. Noda, When Holding on Means Letting Go: Why Fair Use Should Extend to Fan-based Activities, 5 U. Denv. Sports & Ent. L.J. 64 (2008).

  29. 29.

    See e.g., Jean Burgess, et al., Everyday Creativity as Civic Engagement: A Cultural Citizenship View of New Media, Paper presented at the 2006 Communications Policy and Research Forum, Sydney, Australia, Sep. 25–26, available at http://www.networkinsight.org/verve/_resources/BurgessFothKlaebe.pdf.

  30. 30.

    Camille Bacon-Smith, Enterprising Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth 7–8 (University of Pennsylvania Press. 1992).

  31. 31.

    Ito Mizuko, Japanese Media Mixes and Amateur Cultural Exchange, in Digital Generations: Children, Young People, and the New Media 49 (David Buckingham and Rebekah Willett eds., 2013) (noted that young people are “capable of active and critical engagement and interpretation, rather than uncritical and passive viewing of mass media messages.”).

  32. 32.

    For a “users right” perspective, See L. Ray Patterson and Stanley W. Lindberg, The Nature of Copyright: A Law of Users’ Rights (1991); see also Jane C. Ginsburg, Authors and Users in Copyright, 45 J. Copyright Soc’y U.S.A. 1 (1997).

  33. 33.

    See generally, Balkin, supra note 15.

  34. 34.

    William M. Landes and Richard A. Posner, The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law 47 (Harvard University Press. 2003). Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf, File Sharing and Copyright, in Innovation Policy and the Economy (Josh Lerner and Scott Stern eds., 2010); Tatsuo Tanaka, Does File Sharing Reduce Music CD Sales? A Case of Japan Version 0.1, Conference on IT Innovation Hitotsubashi University, Dec. 13, 2004, at http://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/6451470.pdf.

  35. 35.

    Chris Anderson, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More (Hyperion Rev. and updated ed. 2008); Anderson, supra note 5; Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: the Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions 49 (Harper 1st ed. 2008).

  36. 36.

    Alford, supra note 5, at 116.

  37. 37.

    Id. at 117–119.

  38. 38.

    Fisher, supra note 13, at 37.

  39. 39.

    Lawrence Lessig, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy 293 (Penguin Press. 2008).

  40. 40.

    Rebecca Tushnet, Payment in Credit: Copyright Law and Subcultural Creativity, 70 Law & Contemp. Probs. 135 (2007).

  41. 41.

    Peter Decherney, Hollywood’s Copyright Wars: from Edison to the Internet 242 (Columbia University Press. 2012).

  42. 42.

    Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and control Creativity 284 (Penguin Press. 2004); Tim Wu, Tolerated Use, 31 Colum. J.L. & Arts 617, 633 (2008).

  43. 43.

    Zhonghua Renmin Gonghe Guo Zhuzuo Quan Fa (中华人民共和国著作权法) [Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China] (promulgated by the Nat’l People’s Cong., Sept. 7, 1990, amended Feb. 26, 2010 by the Standing Comm. of the Nat’l People’s Cong., amendments effective Apr. 1, 2010), Standing Comm. Nat’l People’s Cong. Gaz., 2009, at 159, translated at World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO Lex No. CN031, http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=186569 (hereinafter 2010 Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China).

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  1. School of Law, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R., People’s Republic of China

    Tianxiang He

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He, T. (2017). Introduction. In: Copyright and Fan Productivity in China. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6508-8_1

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