Why authors become poorer in the digital age? -- The reestablish of a creator-friendly copyright
There are common complains among authors in China, Japan, Korea and other major Asian economies that copyright law results in an insufficient level of remuneration. The situation is deteriorating in the digital age, despite the internet fosters a larger cultural industry and bigger audiences, most authors reflect they receive fewer license requests and copyright royalties than that of paper publishing. It is not merely a financial issue, behind this result is a multiple causation puzzle: the unfair distribution of income among various stakeholders in copyright ecosystem, the challenges to find the authors of massive online “orphan works”, the widespread infringement especially “private copying”, the almost stagnant international licensing framework. All of them indicate the current copyright cannot balance fostering innovation and protection of creators, it is urgent to rethink copyright law systematically.
Creativity is the core of copyright, to foster sustainable and high-quality cultural products under the impact of rapid technological advancement, a author-friendly copyright system should be implemented. Specifically, first, constructing a digital copyright database and reorganize automated intermediaries - publishers or collective societies - which may be costly but worthy, for identifying orphan works and delivering clear signals about trade in a one-click machine-to-machine process. Second, enhancing the proportion of author’s remuneration in overall income generated from cultural activities, particularly for the individual creators. Considering the pervasive infringements and looser exceptions in digital age, collective societies should priorities the protection of author’s interest. Third, establishing an international cross-licensing institution, which would provide an easier way to negotiation, search orphan works and provide remedies in different countries. A similar system supported by WIPO among African countries and successful management of domain names are valuable models for Asian countries.