American copyright law mainly protects the following aspects: 1. Preventing others from using unauthorized works (piracy and plagiarism); 2. Prevent unauthorized access to market profits; 3. Protect the rights of derivative works, and the copyright owner has the right to give the derivative works to others; 4. Protect the right to sell a work for the first time, that is, the author decides when and in what form to publish it.
in addition, American copyright law is different from that of European countries. In America, authors have the right to control derivative works. For example, there is such a case that a British drama group staged a drama, and the British national broadcasting company BBC licensed ABC Company of the United States to play the work for the American audience to enjoy. Because there is no advertisement in the performance when it is broadcast on the BBC, the works edited by ABC company are supplemented with advertisements; Subsequently, the British drama group sued ABC Company to the American court on the grounds of infringement. Although the BBC company authorized ABC company to use the work, the American court ruled that the British drama group won the case because ABC company only obtained the right to broadcast, but not the right to derivative works.
so, how to define infringement? First of all, the principle of defining plagiarism is generally to identify the similarity and relevance of works. Secondly, selling without permission is also an infringement. Therefore, without permission, it is infringement to obtain the source of content in any form, or to spread the unauthorized content in any way.
regarding fair use, the U.S. supreme court has a famous case: a company sued a company for using a part of its own company's content introduction without authorization, arguing that the company infringed the company's copyright. However, the court held that because the content introduction was not created, it was only a factual statement, which was within the scope of fair use, so it was not protected by copyright.
in the United States, the elements for judges to judge whether a work belongs to the scope of fair use are as follows: first, whether it is a commercial act or other purposes for the purpose of use; Second, whether the nature of the work used is for publication or other purposes, and whether the work has been published; Third, in quantity, the proportion of original content; The most important point is what kind of influence this behavior has had on the original work, especially on its market. For example, in a copyright dispute between Sony Corporation of Japan and Universal Records of the United States, because Sony Corporation replayed its TV program through BETAMAK video without permission, Universal Records and Disney Company took it to court for copyright infringement, and the case was appealed to the Supreme Court. Sony proposed that the operation mode of providing time slots for the audience to choose belongs to the scope of reasonable use and is not infringing in essence. The judge decided the case on the premise of not harming the public interest, so Sony finally won the case.
At present, another famous case about fair use in the United States is that 1 publishers filed an infringement lawsuit against Google. Due to the introduction of several university libraries into Google's digital library plan, the plan turns books into digital files for the public to search for free; The author and publisher think that it is an infringement to copy books in an all-round way without authorization, and Google has no right to scan and display books, so they take it to court on the grounds of infringement; Google, on the other hand, believes that it is not infringing on the grounds of fair use. At present, although the case is still under litigation, it has caused many disputes about how to judge the issue of fair use.
resources: the history of copyright inspection in the United States-media-people's daily online
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