文学作品中虚拟角色的著作权法保护

Copyright Protection of Fictional Characters in Literary Works

作品中的虚拟角色包括文学作品、卡通作品、视听作品中的虚拟角色。由于文学作品中虚拟的角色的非直观性,关于其是否可以成为著作权法保护的独立客体争议较大。对文学作品中的虚拟角色而言,可著作权性的最关键要素就是构成单独完整的表达。本文分析了我国现行著作权法在保护虚拟角色方面存在的局限,借鉴、评析并提炼了美国版权法、德国著作权法关于虚拟角色保护的标准,提出当虚拟角色能从文学作品中剥离、被单独识别并利用,就构成了单独且完整的表达,可以成为著作权法保护的独立客体。

Fictional characters of works include literary characters, cartoon characters and audio-visual characters.Due largely to non-intuitiveness of literary characters, a persistent dispute is provoked over whether they can be protected as independent objects of copyright law. As for literary characters, the key element of copyrightability is to constitute independent and integral expression. This article elaborates the limitations of China＇s copyright law in protecting fictional characters, compares and analyzes the protecting standards in copyright law of the United States and Germany, and puts forward that when the fictional characters can be separated from the literary works and be identified and utilized independently, they turn into independent and integral expression which is justified to be protected by copyright law