Digital Piracy in China-an Analysis from Human Rights Perspective

Abstract: Piracy has been a problem ever since the birth of copyright law. All countries have a certain amount of digital piracy problems, among them China is the most serious one. Before the digital era, piracy was in a form of material copying. However, under the modern era, piracy has transformed into a digital form which can no longer be easily controlled by the monopoly power that the copyright holders are given, according to pre-Internet laws. Therefore, there is a strong call for a more powerful copyright protection. The aim of this research paper is to address the digital piracy problem in China from a human rights perspective, focusing on the balance issue between authors and the public and whether the current copyright law is able to keep the balance between them under the new digital environment. Human rights law will be introduced to the digital piracy problem as an alternative tool to keep the balance. Both domestic and international legislations are presented concerning digital piracy in China as well as how the human rights norms relate to the digital piracy problem. Then this paper will examine which one will prevail over the other, human rights law or copyright law. A research in the implementation of copyright law in China is put forward by providing some landmark cases and analysis through both the authors’ and the public’s perspective. In China there is one phenomenon that must be mentioned and that is the censorship posed by the government in China in both political and cultural fields which has a great influence on China’s implementation of copyright law. At last, based on the research of the digital piracy problem in China, some recommendations are presented with the starting point of the state’s obligations under the human rights law framework.