Criminal liability of copyright infringement under network environment: centered on internet service providers criminal responsibility
Ouyang Benqi · Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2021
To fix the legislation gap of pre-law and criminal law, it is necessary to expand the meaning of constitutive requirements of “issuance” of crimes against copyright to get “network information transmission” involved. To avoid the standards of civil responsibility and criminal responsibility being inverted, it is necessary to replace the standard of server and the standard of social harmfulness with the standard of substantive visual presentation in recognizing the network information transmission behavior. Accordingly, the reason for deep linking behavior becoming the principal offender of crimes against copyright is not accomplice principal offenderization theory or social harmfulness theory, but that it substantially changes the presentation mode on works. If an Internet service provider is fully aware others implement crimes against copyright and still provides the technical service, it is not a neutral act without liability, but accessory of crimes against copyright. An Internet service provider has the responsibility of deleting the works infringing copyright or disconnecting linking, which comes from the risk of previous acts. That kind of omission against responsibility commits accessory of crimes against copyright.