论著作权法对“创作者特权”的确认与限制——以“鬼吹灯”案中的作者续写权利主张为切入点

On the Recognition and Limitation of Copyright Law over the Privileges of Creators—Using the Claim of Author's Right to Continue the Story in the Gui Chui Deng Case as the Entry Point

“创作自由”与“创作者的自由”是一对容易混淆的概念,《著作权法》对于这两类自由采取了不同的确认方式,不宜仅基于“创作自由”的话语扩张“创作者特权”,乃至将其主张为著作权法上的专有权利。“鬼吹灯”同人作品案中被控侵权人主张的“系列故事续写权”实为一种积极权利,不同于一审判决和既有研究中确认的消极权利,因而违背了《著作权法》第1条和第10条中对于“创作者特权”及其专有权利化主张的限制。该类主张的背景是两大法系中作品观融合导致了对于作者权益的挤压,作者权理念在法律实践中出现了反弹。从现代社会中创新的复合属性、版权利益分配格局的自发形成、我国社会中通行的权利观念等角度出发,应当坚守《著作权法》对于创作者自由的既有确认与限制机制。民法典对于一般人格权的保护则能够提供外部的制度协同。

“Freedom to Create”and“Freedom of the Creator”are a pair of concepts that are often confused.The Copyright Law of China has recognized these two types of freedom differently.Using the“creative freedom”narrative to expand the“privileges of creators”or even claim it to be an exclusive right recognized by the Copyright Law is not justifiable.In the Gui Chui Deng case,different from the negative right recognized by the first instance and the existing literature,the“right to continue the story series”claim of the defendant is a positive right.This kind of claim violates the Article 1 and 10 of the Copyright Law of China that aim to limit the claims related to the“privileges of the creators”and the efforts to make them exclusive rights.The background of this claim is that the merging of the different concepts of work under civil law and common law jurisdictions has led to the squeezing of the authors interests.Consequently,there was a rebound of the idea of authors rights in judicial practice.From the perspective of the composite nature of innovation in modern society,the autonomous development of the distributive framework of copyright interests,and the dominant concepts of rights in our society,we should stick to the current recognition and limitation mechanism over the freedom of creators of the copyright law.The protection of general personality rights offered by the Civil Code of China could provide external support.