The information on the network includes not only the original works uploaded, but also some so-called original works. The author's copyright should be protected no matter which of the two works meets the requirements of the Copyright Law. The legal protection of the author's copyright is not different because of the carrier of the work, so there is no difference between "paper copyright" and "online copyright". But, for example Website design For such a complex information aggregation, it is not a simple problem to judge whether it is protected by copyright law. It is rare for a website to be composed of a single work. They are basically composed of words, pictures, recordings, animations and other media. Therefore, whether a website can obtain copyright protection depends on whether the website constitutes an "assembly work".
Since the revision of the Copyright Law of China, the standards for compiling works that are protected by law in China have been unified with international standards, that is, whether it is the compilation of works and fragments of works, or the compilation of data or other materials that do not constitute works, as long as the selection or arrangement of contents reflects originality, they can be protected by copyright. Therefore, even if the website is composed of materials that are not protected by copyright, it does not prevent it from being protected by copyright. The decisive factor is whether the selection and arrangement of website content reflect originality.
When the owners of websites and web pages are unable to obtain legal protection of copyright, they usually turn to the anti unfair competition law to accuse others of "similar" web pages. The anti unfair competition law, to a certain extent, plays a complementary role in the specific legal systems such as copyright law, trademark law, patent law, etc. Although the criteria for judging unfair competition behavior are different from those for judging infringement of the right to act, they are related. To judge whether the defendant's behavior constitutes an unfair competition, it is necessary to consider not only the causes of the same, but also whether the defendant's similar website will be confused with the plaintiff's website, and whether the overall arrangement of the defendant's website will mislead the general public.
When websites and web pages are considered as compilation works, is the scope of protection limited to itself or include the materials they link to? The analysis of such problems should be carried out from the specific form of link. Setting a link is simply to record the address of the linked content on the network, so that users can access the content to relevant network resources according to the address. The linked materials are neither copied to the server of the linked website nor controlled by the linked website. Therefore, the linked content is not "assembled" into the real content of the linked website. Even if the chained website constitutes an assembly work, the chained content is not included in it. If someone imitates the link setting website completely, the link setting website can seek legal protection from two aspects. The first is to claim the copyright of the compilation work. The content of the work is the network address or link sign of the chained material presented on the web page, and its originality is reflected in the selection or arrangement of the web address or link sign. The second is that the defendant's behavior constitutes unfair competition. In the later part of this chapter, this question will also be specifically discussed. In addition, there are also problems such as third party infringement, which have become increasingly prominent in the environment of the rapid development of the network.
