The expansion of copyright is directly caused by technological advancement, but subsequently the degree of copyright expansion is far higher than that of the need in meeting technological challenges, which has triggered a series of negative effects. This expansion of copyright dominated by United States, the European Union and other developed countries has been criticized by the scholars in academic circle. They consider that the excessive expansion of copyright may obstruct the technological innovation and threaten the public right to be given enough access to knowledge, while scholars in developing countries such as India and China begin to reflect the harm of copyright expansion from the perspective of cultural colonialism. The paper mostly discussed the problems triggered by the expansion of copyright in the digital technology environment,and proposed specific measures to deal with the problems for the actual expansion of copyright in China.In the introduction section of the paper, the background information, significance and purpose of the topic selected are provided, and the body of the paper consists of four parts. The first part is about the expression of the copyright expansion, and it mainly describes the global trend of the copyright expansion from the aspects of the object of copyright, the content of copyright and the measures of technical protection. The second part presents the major problems caused by the expansion of copyright, and discusses its negative impact on the freedom of creation, the development of technology, fair use and the principle of copyright exhaustion, which has exceeded reasonable limits and broken the balance traditional copyright system try to maintain between the encouragement to intellectual innovation and diffusion.. Although copyright expansion originally aimed to adapt traditional copyright law to the digitalized environment, the excessive expansion essentially aggravated the "digital crisis" of copyright system. The third part mainly analyzes the legitimacy of the copyright expansion from the perspective of the utilitarian theory of intellectual property. The utilitarian theory of intellectual property is applied the most widely in the Western field of intellectual property right. The theory is generally approved since it applies the approach of economic analysis to quantize the legitimacy of copyright, and it can express the abstract and vague standard of legitimacy in a direct and specific way which is more rational than any other theories. In the part the theoretical analysis complies with the requirements of objectivity and neutrality. We can get a conclusion by analysis that, although the global expansion of copyright has broken the balance between the common interests of the copyright holders and the public, the legitimacy of copyright expansion should be analyzed in consideration of actual conditions of different countries, due to different situation of implementation of national laws, levels of technological development and the practical influence brought by the copyright expansion. It is irrational to determine whether the expansion of copyright is just only in terms of the present trend of globalized copyright expansion. The last part provides many suggestive measures for China to face the challenges brought by the expansion of copyright. The problems of copyright legislation and the causes are figured out at first according to the current situation of copyright legislation, and then it is pointed out that in China the system of copyright restriction should be refined and the wanton tendency of copyright expansion should be held in check. What's more, the innovation and the spread of knowledge should be encouraged properly to maximize the vitality of cultural creation and technological advancement. |