| Since entering the modern society,the sports economy has developed rapidly and become a new growth engine for China’s national economy.As the core content of the sports culture industry,live sports events programs have gradually become an important economic source for TV stations,sports organizations,online media and other industry organizations.One of the reasons why the sports industry has such a degree of contribution to economic growth is that human wisdom is condensed in sports events,and this wisdom is evaluated as intellectual property in the field of jurisprudence.At the same time,disputes related to sporting events programs are coming to the forefront.A number of IPR cases related to sports events have been heard by local courts,and such cases have gradually become the focus of attention of scholars and practitioners.The development of the sports industry has led to an increasing emphasis on the protection of intellectual property rights of sports programs.With the advancement of production technology and the enhancement of viewers spiritual needs,it is difficult to meet the development needs of the industry and the public interest without strengthening the protection of live sports programs.On November 11,2020,the Standing Committee of the 13 th National People’s Congress adopted the third amendment of the Copyright Law,which added the legal type of works audiovisual works,but the debate on the attributes of sports programs did not stop in China intellectual property law circles.On the contrary,since video products are still retained under the framework of the current copyright law,it is still unclear whether live sports programs are works or products.In judicial practice,different court decisions have determined the nature of live sports programs differently.The way of regulating infringement also varies.Some courts have held that media organizations have acquired a new right by producing sports programs.Live sports programs can be treated as works or video products and become the object of copyright or neighboring rights,and thus can be protected by intellectual property rights.However,the protection of copyright law is significantly stronger than that of neighboring rights,so courts need to weigh the interests of all parties when making decisions.In order to avoid making a choice,some courts directly regulate the infringement of sports programs by anti-unfair competition law,providing underwriting protection for live sports programs.In order to avoid the problem of characterization of live sports events,some courts have adopted the anti-unfair competition law to regulate the infringement of live sports events.At present,the following dilemmas exist for the copyrightability of live sports programs: first,the originality of live sports programs cannot be judged by clear standards.No matter in the practical or theoretical circles,there is no authoritative interpretation and standard for the determination of the originality of live sports events,coupled with the fact that there are many subjects involved in live sports events,complex contractual relationships between them,and unclear rights and obligations,resulting in different scales of judicial decisions and different results.Secondly,the object of copyrighting live sports events is not clear,and it is doubtful whether it has fixedness.Thirdly,the balance between the copyrighted live sports programs and public interests is also an important consideration for the theoretical and practical circles,as live sports programs have the property of public interest,and their copyrighting will objectively restrict their dissemination,which will have a certain negative impact on the public interests.The existing anti-injustice competition law cannot provide targeted protection for live sports programs,and cannot rashly intervene in the private rights territory of sports programs copyright protection.The nature and content of the rights of live sports programs are not clearly defined in the anti-injustice competition law,which makes it impossible to prevent infringements such as pirated broadcast only after the fact.By comparing the attributes of sports programs under different legal systems,we now propose a specific analysis of the copyrightability of sports programs in China.Firstly,we will clarify the criteria for determining the originality of live sports events,and apply the selective space method to determine whether the live sports events in a specific case are copyrightable.Secondly,we clarify that live sports events are not the same concept as live sports programs,and live sports programs with originality are objectively the intellectual achievements of the producers,which can be considered as objects to be protected in the field of intellectual property and have certain external expressions.Third,copyrighting live sports programs can help protect and motivate the producers of live sports programs,while also taking into account the public interest.Improving the protection of live sports events will certainly help the prosperous development of my sports industry. |
