On The Copyright Protection Of Sports Event Broadcasting Rights

The increasing public attention to sports events has brought huge commercial value and economic benefits to the further development of the sports industry.However,as the commercialization trend of sports events is becoming more and more obvious,disputes involving sports events programs have also occurred frequently.The infringements by means of piracy and illegal rebroadcasting are the most common,causing huge losses to the legitimate rights and interests of right holders.In this kind of disputes,the judicial organs should determine the legal attributes of sports events and what types of rights should be applied to regulate infringement,which leads to the greatest discussion between the theoretical and practical circles.My country’s current "Copyright Law" legal system still has many deficiencies in the protection of sports event programs and their broadcasting rights.The lack of a clear definition of the concept of "broadcasting" leads to a vague definition of the scope covered by "broadcasting" in practice.The unclear standard and nature of the "originality" standard and nature of sports event,which makes the authors of sports event program and other rights subjects unclear about whether to put forward copyright or neighboring rights protection,and brings difficulties for judges to apply the law.The scope of application of the stipulated broadcasting right and the right of information network dissemination,as well as the subject scope of the broadcasting organization right are too narrow,and it is difficult to meet the requirements of the legal protection of the right to broadcast sports events at this stage.The calculation standard of infringement damages is not clear,the amount of compensation claimed by the plaintiff in the case is often far from the final judgment result of the court,and the judicial organs themselves have many differences in the factors to be considered when determining the specific compensation amount,which will not be conducive to the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of the relevant rights subjects and the settlement of disputes.The application of the principle clauses in the Anti-Unfair Competition Law as a protection for the right holders when the infringement case of sports event broadcast occurs,it has natural shortcomings.It is not only incompatible with the legislative concepts of the Copyright Law,but also makes the scope of application of the Copyright Law has been emptied,and the negative "weak" rights protection mechanism formed is difficult to make up for the losses suffered by the infringed party due to the infringement.For the problems mentioned above,this article believes that my country should improve in the following six aspects: first,to clarify the concept of "broadcasting ";second,to set up the criteria of " originality " and to recognize sports event programs as audiovisual works;third,to expand the scope of protection of broadcasting rights and information network dissemination rights;fourth,to expand the scope of the rights subject of the broadcasting organization rights appropriately;fifth,to establish the standard of tort compensation for broadcasting rights of sports events;sixth,to standardize the application of the Anti-unfair Competition Law.