体育赛事节目录像制品保护的困境与出路——以邻接权的客体为视角

Difficulties in Protection of Neighboring Rights in Sports Events Program:From Perspective of Object of Neighboring Rights

目前,我国司法实践中法院多以独创性低为由将体育赛事节目认定为录像制品给予邻接权保护,这实际上将独创性较低的思想表达作为了邻接权的客体。从制度产生的根源以及相关国际条约的规定来看,邻接权的保护对象应为现有内容的传播。在著作权法中规定邻接权制度的目的并不在于保护独创性低的思想表达,而在于保护传播者对作品的传播利益。判断某一内容是否属于邻接权客体,不应当根据其独创性的高低或有无,而应当看其是否属于对现有内容的传播。体育赛事节目本质上属于对体育赛事现场实况的传播,以此为由将其认定为录像制品给予邻接权保护,显然更符合邻接权制度的一般原理。

In the current judicial practice,the Chinese courts often consider sports event programs as video-recordings to protect neighboring rights on the grounds of low originality.This practice actually takes the lower originality expression as the object of neighboring rights.From the origin of the neighboring rights system and the provisions of relevant international treaties,the object of neighboring rights should be the dissemination of existing contents.The purpose of stipulating neighboring right system in the copyright law is not to protect the lower original expression of ideas,but to protect the dissemination interests of the disseminator.Judging whether a certain content belongs to the object of neighboring right should not be based on its originality,instead,it should be based on whether it is dissemination of existing content.Sports event programs are essentially the dissemination of live sports events.Taking this as the reason to consider it as video-recordings to give neighboring rights is obviously more in line with the general principle of the neighboring right system.