Analysis On The Copyright Protection For Broadcasting Images Of Sports Events

In recent years,with the integration of Internet and sports industry,China has witnessed a rapid development of the sports live broadcast industry.Giant Internet platforms are competing for the copyright to broadcast top international sports events,and meanwhile,more and more viewers are choosing online platforms to watch sports events.However,the protection of the intellectual property rights for sports events is lagging behind the development of the industry,which has lad to an increasing number of online infringement cases.At present,the Copyright Law in China has not yet clearly stipulated the essence of broadcasting images of sports events.It has been fiercely disputed in academia and judicial practices whether such images have a high originality and constitute "work" as defined by copyright law.Even for the same cases,different courts may give different judgments,which severely harms the credibility of justice and law.The famous case between Sina and Phoenix could be taken as an example.In 2015,Sina sued it to the People’s Court of Chaoyang District in Beijing for the unauthorized broadcast of the Chinese Super League of Phoenix.The court affirmed that Sina has the copyright to the live images of the mentioned sports event.This was the first case in China that to recognize the images of sports events as works.In the second instance,however,the Beijing Intellectual Property Court rejected the judgment of the first instance,stating that the process of making such broadcasting images could not reflect originality,and thus could not be defined as work.As a result,Phoenix did not infringe the copyright of Sina.In 2020,the case underwent a third trial and was finally settled after all the disputes.The court upheld the first-instance verdict,proposing that the determination of work shall be based on whether there is originality rather than whether how high the originality is.The judgments of such cases during past years in China has mirrored the uncertainty in the determination of the nature of the broadcasting images of sports events in the Copyright Law.When compared with other countries horizontally,one can find that the determination of broadcasting images of sports events can be divided into two categories in international community.The copyright system represented by the United Kingdom and the United States has low requirements for the originality of works.The filming of sports events is also protected by the copyright laws in these countries,as the creation of such videos embodies a minimum level of originality.In contrast,the author’s right system represented by France and Germany has higher requirements for the originality of work.The creator must include his or her unique thoughts and creativity within their intellectual achievement to make it a work.Consequently,Germany refers to the filming of sports events only as "moving images"and sets the system of neighboring rights to provides corresponding legal protection.In terms of the purposes of these two systems,the former one attaches more importance to the protection of authors’ economic interests,while the latter one pays more attention to the creation and innovation of works.Although the copyright law system in the USA is usually criticized as causing over-protection,it is not the same case for the sports live broadcast industry.Generally speaking,the filming of a sports event has very strict requirements for the equipment,technologies and shooting angles,and the shooting is usually designated by the organizers of the event.Hence,it is indeed difficult to see inferior plagiarism works on the market.Even if there are,these low-quality works cannot be accepted by the users.In another word,the market is sufficient in excluding low-quality plagiarism.On the contrary,what needs to be controlled is the illegal infringement of live broadcast of sports events,which requires copyright laws to take action.In contrast,a high standards of originality will lead to difficulties in identifying works,and the interests of broadcast rights owners cannot be guaranteed.In terms of legal practices,this paper summarizes the disputes and judgments concerning the copyright of the broadcasting images of sports events in China during the past several years.Data shows that the number of copyright disputes regarding broadcasting images of sports events has been increasing in recent years,and the judgments of Chinese courts in handling such cases have been gradually updated and improved.Since 2015,more than half of such cases eventually admitted the broadcasting images of sports events as works with stationality and originality.In addition,in terms of judgments trend,China has also a tendency leaning toward gradually relaxing the threshold for identifying such images as works The three trials between Sina and Phoenix can be taken as a microcosm of this trend.Moreover,China has passed the third revision of the Copyright Law in 2020,in which the original concept of film work is replaced by audiovisual work,and the definition of broadcasting rights to clarify the the protection of real-time Internet broadcasting is also reconstructed.The revision reflects China’ s determination in expanding the scope of copyright protection,so as to keep pace with the development of new information technologies.In a word,based on both theories and practices,this paper finds that the copyright protection of broadcasting images of sports event is necessary and reasonable in China.Regarding the standard of originality of the broadcasting images of sports events,judicial practice shall take the existence of originality as the criterion of work.During the process of filming sports events,the arrangements and selection of the shots have reflected the creativity and subjectivity of the creators,and the originality of their work shall be recognized.Only in this way could the interests of broadcasting rights holders be protected by Copyright Law.Furthermore,it can help avoid the recurrence of similar disputes in legal practices,reduce the increasingly rampant Internet piracy,regulate the booming sports industry market,and create great economic and social values in China.