Recently, the 5th China "Internet Literature +" Conference was held at the Exhibition Center of Zhongguancun National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone in Beijing. The representative of the right holder, Associate Professor of the National College of Chinese Min University, Ph.D. of the Department of Chinese of Peking University, and famous wuxia novel writer Bu Feiyan attended the Copyright Forum and delivered a keynote speech on "Several Questions on Secondary Creation and Derivative Copyright", the full text of which is as follows:
First of all, thank you very much, thank you to all the leaders, your peers, and all your friends in the media for giving me this opportunity to speak on behalf of myself and some of my writer friends around me. In fact, I can say that I am a person between traditional writers and online writers, because my most active era of creation coincides with the period of traditional creation and online creation, I first published my own text on the BBC, like the Tianya community, and later on Chinese online, on some other websites. So, probably in this alternating period, most of my friends are online writers.
We encountered a lot of problems when we were creating, and we also felt very confused, and today we have the honor to consult all of you. I myself feel that there are two points to a more focused problem.
01
Copyright recognition and attribution of fan works
First, the issue of secondary creation, to put it more simplistically, is the issue of copyright recognition and attribution of fan works. As an author, I myself have written fan fiction for other works, and my works have also been written by other people, which may be a dual identity, so sometimes I feel that there are a lot of things that are unclear and unclear. We all know that fandom creation, that is, secondary creation, now has a very high degree of popularity, for example, there are some well-known works that are actually created by authors and readers, such as we are all familiar with, like "Marvel Universe", which in addition to some officially authorized authors, you may be able to see a large number of spontaneous, as fan authors to create works, some works are very good.
In reality, especially some well-known Western works, such as we like Harry Potter today, like "A Song of Ice and Fire", we go to write fan fiction, is it possible to get the official authorization of others? I don't know how to take it, maybe it's possible, but I don't know, most authors don't know, this is the confusion of our creation, so are our creations reasonable, are they legitimate? Does it involve some copyright issues and ethical issues? If it is involved, at what level, is it that I publish my work and it constitutes infringement, or does my work have to be commercialized to form infringement? This is the doubt I would face as a fan-author.
At the same time, I am also an original author, and there are many authors who are writing fandom for my novels, at this time I am very happy, I am grateful to look at these works, I feel that someone is willing to write, willing to share my world, willing to share with me the virtual space I have built, this is my honor, my glory. But there will also be problems in it, when my readers, the authors of these fan fictions who write me, they mature, they sometimes start serializing these works themselves, they sometimes tell me, I can't change the name of the protagonist, go back to my original, I said of course, this is of course, this is your creation, maybe this character's persona is using my persona, you change his name, make some changes, I think it's ok. But there are also some author friends who will feel very depressed when they encounter this situation, he feels that the character of this character was originally created by me, and now you have derived it into your original work, and in a few years, maybe everyone can't tell who is first and who is later, and will also encounter such a problem.
At the same time, because we have a variety of groups with readers in such a creative process, there are QQ groups, There are WeChat groups, and all kinds of masses, we sometimes discuss the plot that has not yet been disclosed with some core readers, which is very normal, and sometimes we will listen to the opinions of readers, whether male one and female one should be together, or male one and female two together, if everyone reacts particularly fiercely, some authors can change, and he is afraid of being sent blades in the end. In cases, sometimes the author's creation is no longer his own, and he will be influenced by the reader. Some bridge sections will even be written into the work with the bridge section provided by the reader, at this time there will be problems, if one day this reader is no longer his hardcore reader, he proposed that this bridge section is my original, I don't want to give it to you now, what to do? I also encountered this situation, and later he and the reader were very unhappy, and his readers also published this matter on the Internet, called official copying, that is, the official copy of fan works, you copy the ideas he provided, it is also possible. As the author, we are completely blind and black, do not understand, in the end how to calculate, have not understood, very brain-burning.
02
Copyright attribution of derivatives
I also had another problem, which was also a problem of secondary creation, which was derivatives. Some authors with the current high awareness of copyright, many works have been adapted, sometimes the film and television company will ask the screenwriter to create after buying away my adaptation rights, this we know, after the screenwriter creation, the script has an independent other copyright, this copyright seems to be independent, it belongs to the film and television company or screenwriter, at this time if there is another game company, according to this script in the adaptation, and the original author has no relationship, Whether or not it is necessary to obtain the approval of the original author is another confusing account.
If this is already very brain-burning, let's say a more brain-burning, if this film and television company thinks that I simply ask the original author to be my first screenwriter, this original author has two identities at the same time, one is the author, and the other is the screenwriter. Most of the screenwriters sign contracts for commissioned creation, that is, the copyright of the script belongs to the film and television company, but the copyright of the novel belongs to him, which is two problems. But in the process of creating the script, there are some character relationships, there are some bridges, the character direction of the character, it seems that he created when he was a screenwriter, some of them were originally created by him as a novel author, and at this time there was a situation that belonged to two different copyright owners, but they were from a person's mind and a person's hand, so at this time there was a problem, there would be an original author who sold the novel and the next few volumes were not finished, and then he became a screenwriter, and the play was already broadcast After the broadcast, he wrote out the next few episodes of the novel, the plot of the novel and the direction of the TV series are almost the same, it is not difficult for us to imagine, it must be consistent, because the characters are also consistent, the plot is also similar, the outline is also the outline, and the final writing is also himself, but at this time the problem comes, the film and television company will say, you have a few unformed novels behind you, you copied the content of the script you wrote for us. At this point, it is already more brain-burning than nolan movies. There are probably a lot of legal professionals here who will say it's not brain-burning at all, and I can help you answer this question clearly. What I want to say is that for many authors it is not clear, and even after a lot of controversy, everyone still feels very confused.
I used to have a good friend when his work was going to be sold, I told him what he just said, I said that the contract you have to see clearly, he said to me, impossible, on my broken novel sold is not bad, it is impossible to adapt twice, three adaptations, you think too much, the result is not a few years, really encountered this problem.
Sometimes, the author is very simple, he did not think, he also has no way to understand too much, this time is the meaning of our copyright conference today, it can let us a group of legally illiterate, do not understand anything people to get some popular law, let us know that there are some pits in it can be avoided in advance, circumvented, I was also very young when I was creating, my first work was published on the Internet I was not yet 18 years old at the time, I am now 40 years old, I have fallen into the pit many times, I will think about some questions, but there are many online authors, they are even in their early 20s when they became famous, I very much hope that I can put these issues forward on their behalf, I hope to do some popularization of the law for us, let us understand and know what can be done, what can not be done, what should be said in front, when signing a contract, when facing their own works, it is no longer just emotional, I think this is my work, can make it more people see, Anything can be adapted as long as it's adapted, of course, it's a beautiful vision, but it's not like that in the end.
Today, on behalf of this part of us, I would like to raise the doubts in my heart to you, and I hope to be able to get your correction and teaching.
All in all, thank you so much for this forum, thank you!