A Study On The Legal Issues Concerning The Technological Measures For Copyright Protection

The copyright law is designed to balance the interests of authors and those of users. And this paper employs this principle as the basis to discuss the legal issues of the technological measures (TMs).TMs are commonly used by authors to restrict the users from accessing or copying their works without their permission. TMs are defined as any devices, product components or programs incorporated into a process, device or product designed to prevent any copyright or any rights related to copyright as provided by law from being infringed.The copyright holders add TMs to their works in order to prevent any copyright or any rights related to copyright as provided by law from being infringed. However, because of the prevalent practice of circumventing the TMs, the authors' rights are vulnerable to be infringed again. Finally, the copyright holders resort to the legal protection. Against this background, some countries and regions begin to make legal regulations on TMs in order to protect the interests of the copyright holders.This thesis introduces the legal protection on TMs in copyright law in USA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.S.2037.) and EU (Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society) , and then concludes some lessons from the legislation in USA and EU.The legislation of the TMs has strengthened the authors' control over their works. However, the legal regulation on TMs may cause serious conflicts between the TMs and some important systems of traditional copyright law, and may also give rise to other social problems. It breaks the balance between the interests of authors and those of users. Thus, the chapter 2 makes an analysis on the social problems mentioned, in light of balance of interests, and points out that we need to limit the protection on TMs to re-balance the interests.Finally, the paper introduces the legal protection on TMs in China, and makes an in-depth analysis on the Regulation on the Protection of the Right to Network Dissemination of Information. In the end, this paper puts forward some proposals to perfect the legislation in China.