To Steal a Book is an Elegant Offense

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To Steal a Book is an Elegant Offense. Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization is a 1995 book by Stanford University Press by the American legal scholar William P. Alford . Alford studies the differences in understanding of intellectual property in the Western world and China, and finds that understanding of it is much less pronounced in China. The picture that Alford drew of China in this book has shaped the western understanding of the Chinese understanding of copyright since then. The title is a paraphrase of a Chinese proverb.

Alford blames the Confucian tradition for the different understanding of copyright in China . Confucian traditions long prevented the development of individualistic property rights, and consequently the development of intellectual property rights. The Chinese civil service exam , and thus the opportunities for career based for centuries on a teaching system that most accurate copying and memorization rewarded.

In this context, creativity and originality in art became evident in the transformative use of already existing works and the adaptation of the past to the present.

In addition to the historical analysis, he discusses the two attempts to introduce effective Western-style copyright laws in China. Despite considerable pressure from the colonial powers, these attempts failed in the early 20th century and, according to Alford, they failed again at the end of the 20th century.

Alford's research approach was taken up in further studies, for example by Peter K. Yu , Andrew Evans or John Allan Lehman . On the other hand, he was accused of a one-sided interpretation based only on a few historical data. Alford only looks at the historical causes and neglects, for example, economic and technical differences between the West and China. In China itself, researchers like Zheng Chengsi criticized the fact that after the development of the printing press, institutions similar to copyright had emerged.

While Alford and his direct successors also emphasize the various approaches to systems similar to copyright and shed light on the system of creative original creation in China, the often-cited standard work mostly only serves as a reference in order to determine a general incompatibility of Western and Chinese views on intellectual property. The book was intended to ease the tensions between the US and China and to point out that changes in China would take a long time and that they could hardly be influenced from outside. Yet it has often contributed to the opposite: it served American agencies and organizations as confirmation that they must increase pressure and influence on China.

expenditure

  • William P. Alford: To Steal a Book Is an Elegant Offense. Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization . Stanford University Press, 1995.

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c Ke Shao: What May Validate Intellectual Property in a Traditional Chinese Mind? Examining the US-China IP Disputes through a Historical Inquiry , 2006 (1) The Journal of Information Law and Technology
  2. ↑ Mark Rose : Reviewed work (s): To Steal a Book Is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization , in: Business History Review , Volume 69, No. 3 (Fall 1995), p. 448.
  3. ^ A b Seung-Hwan Mun: Culture-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Copyright , Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin 2008, p. 57
  4. ^ A b Lucy Montgomery: China's Creative Industries: Copyright, Social Network Markets and the Business of Culture in a Digital Age Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011, ISBN 978-1-8484-4864-3 , p. 26
  5. ↑ Lucy Montgomery: China's Creative Industries: Copyright, Social Network Markets and the Business of Culture in a Digital Age Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011, ISBN 978-1-8484-4864-3 , p. 27
  6. ↑ Stanley Lubman: Reviewed work (s): To Steal a Book Is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization , in: The China Quarterly , Volume 159, Special Issue: The People's Republic of China after 50 Years (September 1999) , P. 749.

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