Copyright and Collective Management in the Digital Era
Qinqing Xu · 2023
This chapter analyses the origins of copyright and collective management, respectively, and explores the justification of copyright collective management. It starts with introducing the emergence and historical development of copyright, followed by the challenges of copyright protection in the digital environment. This chapter discusses the changing roles of copyright and points out authors’ weak position in the music industry. It argues that copyright and collective management are vital for ensuring creators’ interests, promoting creation and benefiting the public. This chapter analyses the origins of collective management and the functions of collective management organisations (‘CMOs’). It discusses the changing role of CMOs, as a direct result of digital development, and the necessity of collective management for individuals’ copyright in a digital environment. This chapter concludes that collective management of copyright remains essential to protect the works of individual music creators. Recognition of the importance of a collective management system provides a framework for the assessment of the case studies and the comparative analysis in the subsequent chapters.