The Rise of Fan Activities and the Tension with Copyright Protection in the Digital Environment

As this research is aimed at solving the problem of fan creations in China, it is necessary to first have a deeper understanding of fans and their behavior in the digital era, the opportunities and challenges thereof. For that purpose, the historical and functional aspects of the fan movement and the interconnections between them, and the major changes to the legal system brought by the Internet and digital technologies are examined. Studying these topics allows us to have a clear understanding of the true cause behind the copyright problems of fan creations. This chapter takes the recent development and origin of fan activities in different countries as a basis, to explain the legal problems of fan activities and whether the corresponding solutions are sufficient. It first explores the development of several important fan activities and its correlations with new media (Sect. 2.1). Further, it examines the challenges of the digital technologies that the copyright system is facing (Sect. 2.2), and draws several conclusions regarding the impasse that copyright owners face when trying to enforce their copyright against fan creations in the digital era (Sect. 2.3).