综艺节目著作权的司法保护探讨-StudyonJudiciaryProtection.PDFVIP

Study on Judiciary Protection on Variety Show Copyright In recent years, the Chinese variety shows has spread among all the TV programs. Variety shows such as marriage and dating program, talent and skill competition program, art performance program, and etc. emerged one after another. It has been a general phenomenon that variety shows “copy” each other, which gives rise to the issue of protecting copyright of TV variety shows. This article intends to discuss the possibilities and conditions to provide legal protection to the variety show patterns, based on the current status of Chinese variety shows and in conjunction with analysis on PRC Copyright Law and relevant stipulations issued by Beijing High People’s Court in relation to the copyright of variety show. 1. Current Status of Variety Shows The Chinese variety shows seem to be under plagiarism trouble. HNTV ’s Super Girl is claimed to copy American Idol, JSTV’s If You Are the One is claimed to copy Somebody to Love of HNTV, Dragon TV’s Go Fighting is claimed to copy X Challenge of Korea and Up Idol of HNTV is claimed to copy Outstanding Figures of Korea. The copying trend of variety shows is closely related to the pattern of the variety shows. However, it is hard to identify “copy” as “infringement” from the legal perspective. It is generally accepted that creation is the core element of variety show patterns. Other elements such as the procedure of the program, rules and technical regulations are all inspired by such creation. However, creation is a kind of thought, while the PRC Copyright Law only protects original methods of expression other than the thought itself. This is the fundamental reason why variety show pattern can be hardly protected by Copyright Law. 2. Brief introduction of Explanations by Beijing High People’s Court Regard