ABSTRACT
Under the current digital and knowledge economy environment, the circulation, distribution and ‘accumulation of knowledge’ have become determinant in the growth of economy.8 This also justified the ‘fundamental and catalysing role’ of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in the current knowledge economy, since IP laws can directly determine the public’s access to various intellectual resources, the duration of that access and the price for using those resources.9 As some commentators observed, the IPRs, as the legal foundation of the ‘global knowledge-based economy’,10 are playing an increasingly important role in the creation of business fortunes and the enhancement of economic growth. Particularly, since the late 1990s, the application of Internet and digital technology has become ‘ubiquitous, embedded, and animated’ in our society.11 Advances in technology have not only fundamentally changed the rules of information distribution and dissemination, and brought about great challenges to traditional copyright
5 Hansen, Hugh C., ‘Impact of the Trips Agreement on Specific Discipline Copyrightable Literary and Artistic Work – International Copyright: An Unorthodox Analysis’ (1996) 29 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 579, 582.
