The object of protection stipulated in China's copyright law is works, that is, intellectual achievements that are original and can be copied in some tangible form in the fields of literature, art and science. It can be seen that a work protected by copyright law needs to have two elements: first, the work is the result of human intelligence creation; Second, what belongs to the category of works is not the intellectual achievements in all fields of human beings, but only the intellectual achievements in the fields of literature, art and science. China's Copyright Law clearly lists eight kinds of works, such as written works, oral works, music, drama, folk art, dance, acrobatic works, fine arts and architectural works, photographic works, film works and works created by similar filming methods, engineering design drawings, product design drawings, maps and schematic drawings, computer software and other graphic works and model works, and takes "other works stipulated by laws and administrative regulations" as an elastic clause to adapt to copyright.
To talk about whether ideological content can be protected by copyright law, we must first make clear the relationship between ideological content and the expression of works. The ideological content of a work refers to the theme and theme of the ideas, concepts, principles, methods, steps or objective things and events reflected by the author with the help of the work; The expressive form of a work refers to the sum of various expressive techniques and skills used by the author to express a certain idea or a certain content through the work, which is objective. We know that works are the unity of ideology and expressiveness, and the ideology of works is purely subjective, which can only be perceived by people with the help of certain forms of expression, otherwise it is even more impossible to involve the level of protection; At the same time, we should also see that the form of expression is only a reflection of the ideological content of the author's works. Without ideological content, there is no basis for existence, and there is no need for existence, so the work is empty and worthless, that is, the expression has become a rootless tree and passive water.
In my opinion, ideological content should be protected by copyright law to some extent. This can be understood from the following aspects. Personal Rights of Works and Protection of Ideological Content
If the ideological content of a work is not taken as the protection object of copyright law, there may be some unexplained problems, such as the understanding of the relevant content of deductive works. Deductive works are re-creations of the original works. In this process, the copyright subject of deductive works must ensure that the integrity of original works is not destroyed according to law, and the copyright subject of original works has the right to protect the integrity of works, that is, the right to protect original works from distortion and tampering in form, content and author's creative intention according to law. If the reader's understanding of the original author's creative intention is slightly deviated, the content of the work may completely deviate from the original author's will in his re-creation results, directly or indirectly distorting or tampering with the original work, hurting the author's thoughts and feelings, and possibly damaging the author's image. This indirectly reflects the necessity of listing ideological content as the object of copyright law protection.
We can further raise this to the level of personal rights protection of works. The emergence and development of the world copyright legal system has generally gone through the protection stage associated with "publishing privilege", the protection stage associated with "property right of works", the protection stage associated with "personal right of works" and the international protection stage of copyright today. Among them, the protection stage related to "personal rights of works" is from the end of18th century to the beginning of19th century. The protection of personal rights of works is the perfection of copyright protection. Kant, a German enlightenment thinker, and others believe that a work is first and foremost a reflection of the author's personality. In copyright, personality right is the first and property right is the second. In fact, to some extent, the protection of the property rights of works is not only an affirmation of the author's labor achievements, but also a respect for the author's personal rights, which is embodied in the author's rights to works, especially the author's right to modify and protect the integrity of works, which is precisely to safeguard the author's rights to works from the ideological content. It can be seen that from the perspective of personal rights of works, ideological content should also be included in the scope of protection of copyright law.
In addition, China's copyright law has restrictive provisions on the protection of works, expressly stipulating works that violate good customs, are anti-party and anti-society, and those works that are not suitable for copyright protection, such as laws, regulations and other relevant official documents and their translations, open calendars, mathematical formulas, etc. These provisions are all considered from the content of such works. Since the protection of works can be ruled out from the perspective of ideological content, why can't copyright law protect the ideological content of works? This is obviously unexplained. The originality of works and the protection of ideological content
Secondly, this involves how we should understand the originality of the work. The originality of a work means that the work is conceived independently by the author, and the content or expression of the work is completely or basically different from the published works of others. The author believes that the originality of a work not only refers to the originality of the form of expression, but also includes the originality of the ideological content of the work. By selecting materials, the author conceived in general, added his own thoughts, infiltrated his own understanding, thoughts and feelings, thus forming his own unique things and making his works have his own value.
For example, regarding War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the author can choose the theme of Nanjing Massacre to express his condemnation of Japanese aggression against China, and he can also choose the theme of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression to express the national spirit of China people. The work is original in ideological content, and the author needs to consider the ideological content of the work he wants to create, so as to decide what form to use to express the work, which is embodied in the selection of materials and many other aspects to form an original form of expression. Therefore, it is inevitable to put the cart before the horse by only protecting the form of expression and not protecting the ideological content of the work.
Considering the relationship between originality in copyright law and novelty in patent law, copyright law regulates the fields of literature, art and science, while patent law regulates inventions, utility models and designs, and their adjustment ranges are different. Novelty in patent law emphasizes innovation and requires improvement in level, so why can't copyright law require novelty in the ideological content of works? Novelty here emphasizes the uniqueness of the author's creative point of view, that is, the ideological content of his creative works should be different to some extent, rather than simply repeating the content of others' works, even if the expression is different. The creators of deductive works often change the expression form of the original work, but they also infiltrate their own views and ideas. Marx's dialectical materialism holds that human consciousness is a reflection of matter, and at the same time it is independent. Different people have different views, and different people's consciousness based on the same objective thing cannot be exactly the same. With the same theme and content, different authors will have different thoughts and feelings and unique opinions, and their works may also reflect different ideas. Software Copyright and Ideological Content Protection
China's copyright law regards computer software as one of its protected works, but if ideological content is not the object of copyright law protection, there will be defects in protecting computer software. Copyright law only protects the form but not the ideological content, which is embodied in the software, that is, it only protects the source program and documents of the software, but does not protect the algorithms and ideas and methods of solving problems, while the essence and value of the software are mainly embodied in the algorithms and ideas and methods of solving problems. Copyright law only protects the form, which makes it impossible for people to write programs that realize the same function in the same operating environment with different programming languages and operating skills based on the same idea. In this case, we must use other laws and regulations to protect it, which will lead to the loose protection of computer software and is not conducive to its protection. It can be seen that in this sense, it is also necessary to take ideological content as the protection object of copyright law. Freedom of thought and protection of ideological content
A criticism of taking ideological content as the protection object of copyright law is that thought is free, and if ideological content is included in the protection object of copyright law, it will lead to restrictions on people's freedom of thought. So, is this conclusion inevitable? I'm afraid not. We often say that the restriction on something is to better protect its freedom, and this is the truth here. If we blindly pursue the so-called freedom of thought, it may lead to the proliferation of freedom, people can abuse other people's ideas, even lead to distortion and tampering, and even cause harm to other people's personality. The freedom of thought we want to protect will naturally become empty talk. This is the original intention of copyright law to protect the integrity of works. Only by restricting freedom of thought to a certain extent can this problem be solved.
To sum up, the author believes that ideological content should be the object of copyright law protection. Of course, this cannot be absolute protection, because we should also respect the basic principles of copyright law while protecting; Moreover, the ideological protection of works does not mean that when someone creates a work with a certain theme, others are not allowed to create their own works with that theme, but different creations with the same theme are allowed, and the same theme has multiple copyrights, as long as different authors infiltrate their own ideas into the theme and create original things. Therefore, taking ideological content as the object of copyright protection should also be restricted. More from the author's own consideration, more protection is the author's own creativity, the author's own understanding, the author's ideological and emotional content, that is, the author's own things. In addition, the protection of the ideological content of the work is not necessarily reflected in the property, but emphasizes the protection of the author's personal rights. background information
According to Article 2 of the Regulations for the Implementation of the Copyright Law of People's Republic of China (PRC), works mentioned in China's copyright law refer to intellectual achievements that are original in the fields of literature, art and science and can be reproduced in some tangible form.
Works are intellectual achievements obtained through certain intellectual activities, rather than mechanical records or general expressions. The author's thoughts and feelings reflected in the work must be in the field of literature, art or science. Literary works are mainly works that express the author's thoughts in language; Artistic works refer to works that express the author's thoughts by shaping images with the help of other props; Scientific works, including natural science, social science and engineering and technical works, refer to the intellectual creation achievements that express the experience, production techniques and skills of natural science, social science or technology.
The work should be original, that is, the work must be the author's independent intellectual creation, not copying others. Copyright protects the form of the work (that is, the expression of ideas), not the content of the work (that is, the ideas themselves). Therefore, copyright does not require that the content of a work must be innovative. As long as it is created by the author himself, the author uses his own creative skills, integrates his own thoughts and feelings and expresses it in his own way on the basis of mastering certain materials. Originality is the core criterion to judge whether a work can be protected by copyright.
1, property rights law is a method of establishing property rights in creativity to protect creativity, which is the property rights theory of creative protection. The theory of property rights provides the creator of an idea with the exclusive right not to use or disclose the idea without the permission of the creator. 2. Quasi-contract or unjust enrichment method
In common law, quasi-contract, unjust enrichment and restitution can be used interchangeably. Quasi-contract is roughly equivalent to unjust enrichment in civil law system. Under the quasi-contract law, the court considers many facts, including the nature of creativity, the relationship and transaction between the two parties, the consideration of public policy and the expectations of both parties. The court does not require the disclosure of specific relationships or secrets, but requires novelty and specificity. 3. Mode of contract (including express contract and implied contract)
Contract law is the most powerful and effective method of creative protection in practice. Because it does not follow the same policy considerations as quasi-contract or property right theory. The monopoly of ideas will be ruled out in advance, and the fear of scientific and technological progress does not exist under an express contract, because the contract only binds the parties and enables others to use ideas for free. 4. Trust relationship law and anti-unfair competition law.
The Trust (Secret) Relationship Law and the Anti-Unfair Competition Law are actually the same law in nature, and the trust (secret) relationship is the trade secret mentioned in our law. In the United States, compared with the above protection methods, the protection of trust (secret) relationship law and anti-unfair competition law is weak and uncertain. 5. Copyright Law This is a way to protect creativity within the framework of copyright law. Once creativity is protected by copyright law, the rights it obtains will be a very powerful right. Therefore, this is a creative protection method that is most beneficial to creative people. However, this theory of creative protection faces great obstacles: first, an important principle in traditional copyright law, "thought/expression dichotomy"; The second is the impact of creative copyright protection on traditional copyright law. Because fixing in some tangible form is one of the protected conditions in American law, the United States does not protect stage performances and oral works that are not fixed in tangible form. Creativity itself is not necessarily fixed in some tangible form.
In recent years, disputes over the right of signature caused by unclear identification of legal person's works and professional works are not uncommon, and the mastery standards in judicial practice are also different from place to place, which has aroused widespread concern from all walks of life. Therefore, judging legal person's works and professional works according to law will fully and effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of creators, help mobilize the creative enthusiasm of copyright owners and promote the harmonious development of society.