Can a map be a work? Why?

Maps can be works. As long as you have enough creativity and artistic ability, your works are excellent.

To become a work, at least two conditions need to be met, one is originality, and the other is reproducibility. Then there is no doubt that the map can be copied. The key is to what extent this originality needs to be achieved in order to make many maps into works. The answer to this question is yes. Just making a map a work means that your map needs a high degree of self-creation and expression, and you can't copy it completely according to the existing map.

According to the provisions of China's copyright law, maps are works protected by copyright law, so maps are copyrighted and protected by law.

Conditions for obtaining copyright

material conditions

Substantial conditions refer to the requirements of the law for works, and there are generally two standards. One criterion is that as long as a specific thought or emotion is endowed with a certain literary and artistic form, whether it is all or part of the work or the work has been fixed in a certain material form, it can be regarded as a work protected according to law. Another criterion is that in addition to the general conditions of a work, that is, it is expressed in a certain literary and artistic form, it is also required that this form be fixed through a material carrier in order to be protected by the copyright law. According to this standard, oral works and some improvisational dance, music and quyi works may be excluded from the protection scope of copyright law. Article 2 of the Berne Convention stipulates that it is up to each country to decide whether to provide copyright protection for works with fixed intangible carriers. China's copyright law adopts the first standard. Oral works can be protected by copyright law. Therefore, the so-called substantive conditions mean that the production of literary and artistic works is the only legal fact that the law obtains copyright.

Formal condition

Formal conditions refer to whether a work enjoys copyright without other conditions after completion, or only by attaching certain conditions or performing certain legal procedures can the work be obtained. Mainly divided into three ways:

The first way is to automatically obtain copyright on the condition that the work is produced. For foreigners or people who are not parties to the same international convention, the copyright is automatically obtained because the work is published in that country or used in other forms. People usually refer to this practice as the principle of automatic acquisition of copyright, also known as the principle of no formalities. In countries that have established copyright legal systems, most of them implement this principle.

The second way is that in addition to the creation of works, you need to go through the registration procedures to obtain copyright. However, the time and method of registration vary from country to country. The Copyright Law of the Qing Dynasty, the Copyright Law of the Republic of China and the Copyright Law of Taiwan Province Province in China all implemented the registration system. In addition, although some countries implement the registration system, registration is not regarded as a condition for obtaining copyright, but as a condition for confirming copyright, which is a means to facilitate copyright confirmation litigation and a measure for relevant state departments to effectively collect works. Neither the Berne Convention nor the universal copyright convention stipulates that a work can be copyrighted only if it is registered. Therefore, in some member countries of these two conventions that implement the work registration system, the provisions on registration requirements only have legal effect on domestic authors. Other member States of this Convention shall not require registration as a prerequisite for copyright protection of authors.

The third way is to add a copyright mark as a condition for obtaining copyright. In addition, there is no need to perform other procedures. This is a conditional automatic protection method. For example, American law requires authors to add copyright marks to copies of their works. Universal copyright convention also acknowledged this method. Copyright marks usually include three items:

(1) such as "no copying" or "copyright", or add a circle to the English abbreviation C in this statement. If it's an audio-visual product, it's the letter P with a circle outside.

(2) the name of the copyright owner and its abbreviation.

(3) the date of publication of the work. This method is widely used, because it is required by universal copyright convention, and the marking method is simple.

legal ground

Article 3 of the Copyright Law stipulates that the term "works" as mentioned in this Law refers to intellectual achievements that are original and can be expressed in a certain form in the fields of literature, art and science, including:

(1) Written works;

(2) Oral works;

(3) Music, drama, folk art, dance and acrobatic works;

(4) Artistic and architectural works;

(5) Photographic works;

(6) Audio-visual works;

(seven) engineering design drawings, product design drawings, maps, schematic diagrams and other graphic works and model works;

(8) Computer software;

(9) other intellectual achievements that meet the characteristics of the work.