Research On The Exclusive License Of Digital Music Copyright From The Perspective Of Anti-monopoly

The exclusive license of digital music copyright is the product of the market-competition in digital music market with the legitimate copyright process,it belongs to the digital music copyright agreement between digital music copyright owners and digital music platforms about the license of the information network propagation right,and has the function of protecting music copyright and standardizing the healthy development in the digital music market,so it itself does not have the illegality.However,it should not be ignored that the digital music platform implements monopolistic behavior through the exclusive license of digital music copyright,which maybe results in excluding or restricting competition.Therefore,the exclusive license of digital music copyright should not be completely denied,banned,and indulged,but should be further regulated and guided by legal system to help it give full play to the positive effect.In addition to the introduction and conclusion,this paper is divided into five parts:The first chapter introduces some related concepts and attributes about the exclusive license of digital music copyright.It is the exclusive authorization which licenses by individuals.Its typical form is “exclusive copyright +sublicense”,which has two levels.It shows double attribute that not only has legal and reasonable effects,but also affects the healthy competition in the music market.The second chapter examines the exclusive license of digital music copyright from abusing dominant market position.In accordance with the Antimonopoly Law,this part analyzes whether the digital music platform’s exclusive licensing to refuse transaction,overpricing and restricted transaction constitute the abuse of market dominance.The relevant market of digital music industry should not be subdivided into copyright market or communication market according to the industrial chain,but should be defined as the digital music playing platform market in China’s mainland.The dominant market position is judged comprehensively from multiple perspectives,such as market shares,market-entry barriers,transaction dependence,and differentiated services of digital music platform.Finally,by conducting the illegal analysis of refusal to sublicense,priced excessively or limited transaction,we can’t reach the conclusion that refusal to sublicense,overpricing and limited transaction by digital music platforms with exclusive license of digital music copyright is necessarily illegal.The third chapter examines the exclusive authorization of digital music copyright from vertical monopoly agreement.This part analyzes whether the exclusive license agreement signed by digital music copyright owner and digital music platform constitutes a monopoly agreement.The exclusive licensing agreement is based on the consent of the parties and conforms to the contract form in civil law.To judge whether this agreement constitutes a vertical nonprice monopoly agreement,we can positively and negatively consider the factors such as the operator’s market power,the influence on market access and consumers from this agreement,the rationality of sub-licensing conditions,the influences on music communication and innovation,so as to judge the effect of the agreement on excluding and restricting competition.Exclusive licensing agreement does not necessarily have the anti-monopoly law of illegality,and needs case analysis.The fourth chapter talks about the plight of anti-monopoly regulation on exclusive license of digital music copyright.From the analysis of the first two parts,we can infer the basic attitude of regulation on exclusive license of digital music copyright: it is not necessary to deny it fundamentally,but to standardize and guide it through the legal system.So this part analyzes the regulatory dilemma faced by the existing legal rules.Firstly see from the anti-monopoly law,the relevant market is difficult to define;the SSNIP test based on price theory is not adaptable enough;the imperfect rules of vertical non-price monopoly agreements make apply the law unclearly when two rules are concurrent,and difficultly regulate the exclusive license agreements.Secondly,the current law does not make clear standards on reasonable use and abuse of intellectual property rights,as well as the situation of anti-monopoly law intervention,the boundary between the abuse of intellectual property rights and the regulation of anti-monopoly law is blurred,which makes difficult to grasp when people exercises intellectual property rights and enforces anti-monopoly law in reality.Thirdly,the copyright law lacks reasonable restrictions on the exclusive license of music works,it will easily cause competition risks if the licensing parties are not subject to necessary restrictions when carry out exclusive license according to own will.The fifth chapter discusses about the improvement of anti-monopoly regulation on exclusive license of digital music copyright.Firstly see from the anti-monopoly law,in the face of the new changes in the era of Internet economy,delineating the digital music relevant market should be from the consumer demand,and adjust the method for adapting to the new challenges;to improve the vertical non-price monopoly agreement rules by further listing some typical kinds and refining the operating guidelines.Secondly,the relationship between the abuse of copyright and the intervention of anti-monopoly law should be clarified,anti-monopoly law is not the only way to regulate the abuse of copyright,and a prudent and modest attitude should be maintained to comprehensively investigate the behavior of excluding and restricting competition combining with the characteristics of copyright.Finally,set restricted rules for exclusive license of the information network propagation right of the sound recordings,construct centralized copyright warning model,and strengthen administrative supervision of copyright transactions,in order to standardize the exercise of exclusive license right.