元明清时期我国书籍的版权保护

Copyright Protection in Yuan, Ming and Qing China

自唐代之后,我国封建政府一直实行历法官府专有出版的政策。元明清时期的书籍版权保护继承宋代,无论是在形式上,还是在司法实践中,都没有超越宋代。元明清时期盗版活动猖獗,在明代有愈演愈烈之势;然而,在书坊主和盗版者之间自发的矛盾斗争中,作者的版权权益几乎被忽视。我国古代的版权保护,大都是对出版权(属于版权邻接权范畴)的保护。无论是从政治环境,还是从人文传统上来说,我国古代封建社会都缺乏全国性版权成文法产生的条件。

The imperial governments after the Tang dynasty carried on, all the while, with a strict policy of granting the printing patents to certain government offices for publishing calendars. From the perspective of copyright form and judicial practice, the copyright protection in Yuan, Ming and Qing periods did not go much beyond that which existed in Song China. Piracies became more rampant, especially in Ming China. The authors' copyrights were almost ignored during the conflicts between owners of bookshops and pirates at that time. The copyright protection in imperial China was mainly classified into the category of the protection of the rights of publishing. The reasons why a national-wide copyright statute did not come into being in imperial China lied in the rules of governments and the conditions of intellectual and religion.