《中原音韵》的著作权问题

The Discussion on Copyright of Zhongyuan Yinyun

《中原音韵》是一部曲韵著作,元代以来的文献大都记载是江西高安人周德清所著。但从明代开始就有人怀疑《中原音韵》不是周德清独立创作的,而是在前人韵书基础上加工改编而成。事实上,从南宋以来就有北音韵书传世,周德清在创作《中原音韵》的过程中确曾参考过这类著作,周氏因某种原因没有作出明晰说明,后人才怀疑周氏的著作权问题。然而细致分析周氏定本《中原音韵》,虽前有所承,但《韵谱》中所有韵字都经过周氏的重新估量和安排,故《中原音韵》的著作权主要还应归之于周德清。

Zhongyuan Yinyun is a kind of song rhyme book,mostly Literature writings and scholarly research works from the Yuan Dynasty acknowledge that Zhou Deqing whose hometown is Jiangxi Gao＇an in Yuan dynasty creates the Zhongyuan Yinyun.But from Ming dynasty some researchers suspected that Zhongyuan Yinyun had inherited previous works and Zhou Deqing was only an adapter.In fact,the Beiyin rhyme books had been handed down for generations from Southern Song dynasty.There is no doubt that Zhou Deqing had referred this kind of works during the process of creating Zhongyuan Yinyun.the copyright issues of this book just because he did not make a clear explanation.However,if you have analysed the final version of Zhongyuan Yinyun,we will find that all the rhyme characters have been re-measured and arranged by Zhou Deqing,although it inherited some from previous works.So,we can make an conclusion that the copyright of Zhongyuan Yinyun should be attributed to Zhou Deqing.