Copyright in China under Press Control

Since the late 1970s, market forces and private participation have substantially increased in the media and cultural sectors in China. Copyright protection has been (re)introduced as part of the process of creating more market-favourable structures and systems. Simultaneously, however, the Party-state has tried to maintain control over information production and dissemination. The two systems of copyright and press control, with different backgrounds and arguably opposing functions, thus have been involved in ongoing conflict and interadaptation during the political and economic transition that has been taking place in China. Through investigating the interaction between copyright and press control in contemporary China, this thesis aims to evaluate the influence of press control on copyright, and the contribution of copyright to the relaxation of press control, and further explain the failure of the formal rules that has precipitated the rampant levels of copyright piracy in China. Although weakened over the last thirty years, the press control system in contemporary China still displays certain key characteristics of the totalitarian regime of Mao’s era, and thus continues to reflect to some extent a centralized and planned pattern of information production and dissemination. By contrast, copyright is grounded in and promotes a decentralized and market-driven pattern of information production and dissemination. Because of their essential differences, copyright and the press control system have been involved in constant conflict during the social-economic transition experienced by contemporary China, and both have been substantially changed in the process. The research in this thesis reveals that copyright and attendant market forces have substantially changed many important aspects of the press control system. First, copyright has played a very important role in breaking the state patronage system. Secondly, tempted by market profits publishers and authors are constantly pushing at the boundaries of censorship, thereby increasing the diversity of cultural products. Thirdly, partly supported by the copyright system, a vibrant private sector has formed within the publishing industry. On the other hand, press control has impeded the establishment of an effective copyright system in contemporary China. Apart from leaving a strong imprint on copyright law, the press control system also has a negative influence on how copyright actually works. First, censorship prevents copyright owners from fully enjoying their ownership rights. Second, the state monopoly over the publishing sector restricts private publishers’ right to publish and thus prevents them from using copyright to protect their publications. Thirdly, by obstructing private publishers from legally entering the publishing sector, the state monopoly over publishing is also unfavourable for private investment in terms of copyright and tends to drive it into imitation and piracy. Another side of the interaction between press control and copyright systems is that both systems adjust themselves and adapt to the existence of each other. The Party-state now tolerates the existence of the private sector and market forces to a certain extent, as long as they accept and do not directly challenge press control. Although involving substantial compromise on both sides, there is also considerable mutual benefit. The private sector and market-driven participants now enjoy some space for their business and resulting profits from the market. The Party-state is able to maintain its press control in principle without suffering a shortage of cultural products. Moreover, the Party-state is also able to extract revenue from the private sector and copyright exploitation, thus co-opting the market to its own ends by controlling key sectors of the cultural industry and access to the market. The constant conflict and compromise between press control and copyright, however, restrict proper functioning and cause the partial failure of formal rules in both systems. In order to reduce conflict to a tolerable level, the state and the participants in information production and dissemination tend to engage in expedient or opportunistic activities to circumvent or distort the operation of formal rules. As a result, a considerable proportion of information production and dissemination is governed by informal rules or conventional practices, which are beyond the governance of formal rules and legal procedure, such as copyright law