RECONSTRUCTING COPYRIGHT SYSTEM: CRITICAL THINKING BASED ON INTEREST BALANCE THEORY AND INCENTIVE THEORY

Abstract

This paper gives a policy-based interpretation of the copyright law and makes critical reflections on the current copyright regime from the perspectives of interest balance theory and incentive theory. It argues that current copyright system does not give full play to the guiding role of interest balance theory and incentive theory, and several problems are discovered through analysis: neglecting the interests of users, prolonged copyright term, abusing of rights, low remunerations for creators, and inappropriate authorization mechanism for derivative works. Accordingly, the author suggests to reconstruct a more balanced copyright regime from the following perspectives: to implant the role of the users and the social value of their behaviours into the decision-making system; to set the copyright term based on evidence; to re-impose the copyright application and renewal system; to increase the government funding as one of the incentives for creators; to improve the statutory license system and copyright collective management system; and to promote the application of creative commons license to derivative works.