A Book’s Journey Towards China: Managing copyright in the practice of international contracts

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to follow a book’s journey from its publication in the country of origin to China, outlining in particular how copyright is managed across the signing of international contracts. For this purpose, after having delineated the historical origins of the two currently prevailing copyright models and having reported international efforts towards their harmonisation, the first chapter focuses on the first stage of this journey, describing how the relationship between the author of the book and the publisher of the country of origin is crystallised by means of a publishing contract. A detailed description of the main provisions and clauses of this kind of contract is provided, followed by a final section on the role played by international book fairs in propelling the internationalisation of the book itself. The second chapter introduces China’s publishing environment, starting with a brief historical analysis of copyright developments in China from the early 1900s to today’s compliance with international conventions. This chapter then focuses on the specificities of the Chinese publishing industry, including one section examining the Chinese book market and one describing the level of governmental control on the activity of publishing houses. After having collected the necessary knowledge to successfully land in China, our book’s journey continues, outlining the concrete ways in which foreign books can access the country: a detailed analysis on export, rights trade and co-publishing procedures is provided in the last part of Chapter 2 and in Chapter 3. To conclude, the final part of the third chapter focuses on the last stage of this long journey, delineating the forms of censorship and adaptation the book is subject to before it can reach Chinese readers, followed by a concluding section outlining cases in which our book’s journey came to an undesired destination, i.e. cases of copyright infringement.