Abstract
This chapter examines how the Chinese communists dealt with the booksellers' old problem—piracy—from a socialist perspective as a revolutionary party-state. It explores how Chinese publishers and authors, as seasoned economic actors, adjusted to and coped with the new regime and its reshaping of literary property. Rather than provide a comprehensive study of the development of copyright legislation in the People's Republic of China, the chapter focuses on the decline of the old customary copyright mechanisms and the rise of a new socialist literary system, against the background of the profound structural changes in China's cultural economy in the 1950s. It also discusses the new remuneration system that emerged during the First Five-Year Plan from 1953 to 1957, which aimed to provide Chinese authors with better and fairer treatment. Moreover, it considers the unintended consequences and challenges the communist state faced when they tried to turn authors into workers in the collective planned economy.
Published Version
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