字库单字著作权保护的实证考察及反思

Abstract

In recent years disputes about typeface word have continuously occured, making it a hot issue in the field of intellectual property law. In the cases adjudicated some courts identified typeface word as a form of art work, while others denied this. These completely contradictory judgments of different courts in practice have attracted widespread attention in academia, leading to a heated debate amongst scholars where two opposite standpoints have emerged. The assentients take the opinion that as long as the typeface word meets the essential conditions of originality and reproducibility,copyright law can protect it. However, the dissenters maintain that only creative resultant can result in intellectual property; the fruits of labour are just enjoyed by traditional property rights. Thus the issue of whether typeface word can be added into the copyright law framework needs to be urgently theoretically clarified. By comprehensively applying the theory of copyright law and combining it with the texts of law and the nature of typeface word we can draw the conclusion that typeface word cannot be protected under the mode of copyright law. The reasons are as follows:(1) Making typeface word is a productive process, not a creative process. The typeface word is made in accordance with unified production standards, has a standardized production process, has a division of labor of people that possesses the characteristics of industrialized production, and also has strict quality inspection standards. (2) The use of typeface word is the result of typeface software. The interaction between the computer typeface and the computer operating system is similar in effect and method to a Chinese or English printer, providing the functions of text display and output. (3)Typeface word belong to useful article, and thus do not meet the standards of separation characteristics and independent existence. The major function of the typeface word is its utility function, and the aesthetic function is complementary. The nature of typeface word makes it impossible to have either "physical separability" or "conceptual separability". In the production process of the typeface word all the aesthetic artistic design components that the character font possesses have already been fused together with the character strokes. As a result it cannot be isolated again as an art work and exist independently. (4) Typeface word is a printing tool, different from the designer's word draft, and are not calligraphy. Calligraphy is an art form, emphasizing the personality. Only through the authors’ own creative activities can a piece of work be created. In order to pursue their sense of beauty and artistic conception the author directly creates a font where structures and layouts are variable, and each stroke echoes this. There is a qualitative difference between the original calligraphy and duplicated. Moreover, the functions of typeface word are for people to write articles and for typography when designing text; there is no difference between the original and duplicated.