Press Policy and the Publishing Industry in Modern China: A History                        of Copyright Law and Pirated Editions

NAKAMURA Motoya

doi:10.11479/asianstudies.52.4_1

The goal of this paper is to examine how the history of laws governing the press and awareness of the concept of copyright have influenced and controlled modern and contemporary Chinese media. This paper looks at the degree to which press policies were enacted and systematized in China from the late Qing period on, and analyzes the level of awareness of publishing rights in society in general. These issues are discussed by focusing on pirated editions, thereby allowing us to investigate two major topics critical for understanding modern and contemporary China’s press policy and publishing industry: censorship and culture, and the promotion of industry.<br>This paper makes clear the following two points: first, in modern and contemporary China, copyright and censorship have been closely linked. This relationship is not apparent in Europe, the United States and Japan, whose legal systems posit a distinction between laws governing the public realm and laws governing the private realm. Secondly, in China copyright was not only held by authors, it was also held by publishers, and in reality the latter had a more dominant position. This was a characteristic of the late Qing and Republican eras and has shaped the legal system and rights-consciousness in contemporary China (see case 7 in the main text). Having a historical perspective is crucial to analyzing the current situation.

Press Policy and the Publishing Industry in Modern China: A History of Copyright Law and Pirated Editions

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