Research On Statutory Damages For Copyright Of Digital Music

With the development of mobile devices and streaming services,digital music is booming gradually.It also brings many challenges to copyright protection.Under the current copyright law framework in China,the duration and the expenses of lawsuits are not favorable for copyright holders.What's more,the compensatory damages are so limited so that the copyright holders tend to give up lawsuits.Under the internet environment,it is so difficult for the copyright holders to prove the damages or the infringers' illegal benefits so that statutory damages tend to be the main method to determine the final damages.However,the rules and regulations are not clear about how to apply this method and how to determine the final account.It is necessary to catch up the opportunity of the third time amending of Copyright Law so that we can establish a more scientific and reasonable system to determine damages in lawsuits.The first part analyzes the background and current conditions of research on this issue.The internet changes the ways of distribution and makes the distribution more effective so that music can circulate in the market widely and freely.However,this also weakens the power of copyright holder.Especially,the development of digital music platforms greatly changes the business patterns of music creation and distribution.In China,although the digital music is booming,pirating is still one of the most significant and unsolved issues.With more and more regulations and policies coming out to regulate copyright infringement,the number of lawsuits on digital music copyright is increasing.The copyright holders hope to get reasonable damage compensation and deter infringement.The second part analyzes the rules and regulations on statutory damage of China and some extraterritorial states.The Copyright Law of PRC and some judicial interpretations constitute the fundamental framework in China.The Higher People's Courts of Beijing,Shanghai,Guangzhou and Zhejiang put forward detailed directions for cases about statutory damages of copyright of digital music.This part also analyzes the rules and regulations of the United States,the United Kingdom,Japan and Taiwan.It displays reasonable comments after comparing the details.The third part analyzes the the problems and the related reasons in applying statutory damages in music copyright infringement cases.Besides the number and main characteristics of the cases,it figures out the reasons of the problems.What's more,this part analyzes the cases of some foreign countries and they can provide ideas for solving the similar issues in China.The fourth part provides detailed suggestions on how to improve the current rules and regulations of statutory damages in China.Firstly,we should figure out the relationship between statutory damages and other methods,especially the punitive damages;Secondly,we should identify the different account according to various mental states;Thirdly,we should put forward detailed factors especially how to determine reasonable market value of digital music;Fourthly,we should improve the burden of proof so that it is more favorable for copyright holders.