论著作权法修改的市场经济导向——兼论集体管理、法定许可与孤儿作品

The Market-Oriented Approach to Copyright Reform: Collective License, Compulsory License and Orphan Works

世界各国的立法者正在试图去打开数字时代的版权作品宝库,而各类版权立法建议往往指向两个不尽相同的大方向:有些建议将版权从作者授权制度转化为单纯的收费制度,使用者在支付法定费用之后无需授权就可以使用作品,从而取消版权交易的必要性;另一种建议则旨在进一步促进市场交易,为权利人公开版权管理信息提供激励,并为市场参与者版权许可模式的创新和完善提供发展空间。将这两种建议相比较,法定许可类的方案有诸多局限性,例如取消作者的专有权,导致行政寻租和法定许可费低估作品市场价值等问题。但最重要的问题在于,法定许可类制度会大大削弱市场主体提高经营效率和进行技术创新的经济动力。通过对延伸集体管理、法定许可以及孤儿作品立法建议的分析,立法者可以得出一条至关紧要的经验:我们切记不能以降低交易成本的名义,彻底取消市场交易,取消市场作为社会资源配置的主要机制。

Policymakers around the world are working to unlock copyrighted works from substantial transaction costs in the digital environment. Copyright reform initiatives largely follow one of the two directions： Policymakers may change copyright from an opt-in regime into an opt-out or all-in regime（e.g., extended collective licenses and compulsory licenses） to eliminate the necessity of copyright transactions and allow downstream users to exploit copyrighted works without authorization. Alternatively, policymakers may streamline private transactions in the marketplace; create incentives for authors to provide licensing information, and eventually allow market players to innovate on effi cient business models. Compared with the market approach, compulsory licenses have a number of drawbacks, e.g., divesting authors of exclusive rights in copyrighted works, resulting in wasteful rent seeking, and setting arbitrary prices for copyright royalties. However, the fundamental concern is that compulsory licenses would undermine the incentives for collecting societies and other market players to improve their services in order to decrease transaction costs. The evaluation of collective license, compulsory license and orphan work provides legislators with a valuable lesson： We cannot, in the name of lowering transaction costs, completely sidestep transactions, and sidestep the market as the principal mechanism to allocate social resources.