Sino-us Network Fair Use Of Copyright Comparative Study

The essence of copyright law is to balance the relationship of interests between copyright holders and the public, and fair use doctrine has reflected the essence of copyright law. Fair use doctrine serves as the prevailing doctrine under the United States and Chinese copyright law system, and is also one of the most controversial legal rules in the practice and theory of copyright law. In today's highly developed information society, any work could be spread through internet and the features of network enable the copy, downloading, modification and spreading of works to become very easy and inexpensive. Therefore, the network environment has become a major challenge to fair use system from the perspective of legislation and judicial practice. In China, researches conducted on fair use system of internet copyright have just begun and are still at the exploratory stage. Even under the fair use system of traditional copyright, there has not been any authoritative theory established, and most scholars tend to explain the system by citing foreign scholars'opinions. Since internet's technologies have first developed in the United States, the legislation or academic researches relating to fair use system of internet copyright are more advanced than China and we should learn from their experience.In this paper, "Google digital library event" has been used as background to conduct an overall analysis and comparision concerning the fair use system of internet copyright between China and the United States. This paper aims to conduct a legal analysis concerning whether the "Google digital library event" has constituted an infringement under the legal system of China and the United States, based on the analysis and summarization of the difference and similarities between the two countries. This paper will learn from the experience of the United States in the aspects of legislation and countermeasures of fair use system, summarize the inadequaies of the fair use system in China and provide relevant suggestions and ideas.