From Nation To World:a Study Of Chinese People’s Concept Of Copyright In Foreign Copyright Protection

The foreign copyright in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China is a very complicated concept.In time,it appeared in the crazy era of foreign invasion and overthrow of the imperial system.In terms of content,it involves many fields such as culture,law,economy and politics.Chinese people’s comments on foreign-related copyright protection provide a unique insight into the copyright concept at that time.The author collected the public opinions of newspapers and periodicals related to foreign-related copyright protection from the newspapers and periodicals database during 1899-1929,and used literature analysis to investigate the characteristics of Chinese people’s copyright concept,whether there are longitudinal changes,and what the reasons are..Since the Song Dynasty,the copyright ideology has existed in China,but it was not until the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China that the modern copyright concept came into being in the copyright protection activities concerning foreign affairs.The Berne Convention,namely the establishment of the world copyright protection system,changed from "bilateral" to "multilateral".China was asked to join the system corresponds to two foreign copyright protection activities:one is the conclusion of the bilateral copyright protection treaty--the amendment of the US-Japan Trade Treaty added a copyright item;First,China was asked to accede to the Berne Convention--the United States,France,the United Kingdom and other countries kept asking China to accede to the Berne Convention.In the late Qing Dynasty,the United States and Japan brought modern copyright concept to China in the form of unequal treaties,in an attempt to safeguard their own copyright interests in China,which was opposed by China.Government officials fought hard in the negotiations to retain a larger stake for China and began actively building a domestic copyright system.Elite intellectuals also expressed opposition from the perspective of national sovereignty and civilization progress,and Liang Qichao was inclined to agree,which was related to his personal assistance from Japan.In the early Republic of China,the United States,France and Britain asked China to join the Berne Convention,but the society still opposed it.At that time,textbook publishing was flourishing and modern copyright system had been established in China,but copyright protection in Western countries was actually very limited.Booksellers,as the main opposition force,perfectly hid their economic intention in the educational attribute of the publication.Meanwhile,some intellectuals also objected to China’s dependence on the input of civilization.Duanliu Yang and Yugan Wu regard China’s accession to the Berne convention as a way to enhance its international status,and Chinese should not exaggerate the disadvantages of accession.In the activities of copyright protection concerning foreign affairs,whether they are for or against it,they all hope that China can catch up with the world trend in the modernization and get rid of the humiliating status of the loss of sovereignty.Chinese people’s cognition of modern copyright concept is closely related to the Chinese traditional copyright environment.From the perspective of nationalism,Chinese people regard copyright as a concept related to national progress,which is related to the cultural and educational attributes of copyright.Under the influence of cosmopolitanism,Chinese people are gradually familiar with the concept of copyright and the international copyright protection rules,and rational voices on foreign copyright protection appear in China.In this tortuous history,Chinese people’s concept of copyright also began to move towards the world from the nation.