The Domino Effect (copyright law/ statutory license/newspaper/website)
The Domino Effect (copyright law/ statutory license/newspaper/website)
Li Dongtao
Description: The statutory license shouldn’t be applied to cyberspace.
The Facts
It was an eerie effect,
both cold and hot.
This is a case about “effect”.
The plaintiff is a free-lance writer.
The defendant is a .com company operating a commercial website CC.
In July 2000, the plaintiff published an article on information technology on a newspaper’s website AA with a copyright notice “Copyright Reserved” at the bottom of the web page.
Soon afterwards, this article was republished on another newspaper website BB, but without the author’s name and the origin of the article.
A day later, the third website, CC, also republished the article taken from the website BB.
The plaintiff had received remuneration from website AA, but when he asked the defendant for remuneration, the latter refused him.
The plaintiff sued the defendant for copyright infringement.
The defendant argued that the copyright infringement was not established because this article had been published on website BB before and what it done was a statutory license.
Analysis
The copyright infringement is established.
In China, usually, after a newspaper publishes a work, except where the copyright owner has declared that republishing is not permitted, other newspapers may republish it or part of it as long as its origin and the name of the author are made clear and the author is paid remuneration. This is called a statutory license.
Internet is not a traditional newspaper.
In the age of the Internet, it becomes easy to republish copyrightable works only by clicking a mouse, a lot of web sites can republish the same work. However, if the first website is the copyright infringer, the others will not escape the legal liability. A real domino effect.
As a result, the statutory license couldn’t be applied to cyberspace.
This case is a very good example: without the author’s name and the origin of the article and not paying the remuneration, the BB is a copyright infringer; the defendant did republish the article again, then it couldn’t be free from the infringement.
In short, republish, an eerie effect: cold to the plaintiff, hot to the defendant.
版权信息: © 2024 Li Dontao Copyright Reserved.（© 2024 李东涛 版权所有）
