The Boundaries of Fair Use in Plot-Recap Short Videos: A Doctrinal Analysis Based on Chinese Law and Comparative Law

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-551-5_115How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Plot-Recap Short Videos; Transformative Use; Fair Use

Abstract

Propelled by algorithms, 3-5-minute plot-recap short videos can rack up tens of millions of views, yet they repeatedly skirt the red line of copyright infringement. Chinese legislation follows the Berne Convention’s three-step test, yet in practice some courts often collapse it into a single inquiry—whether the use is for the purpose of introduction or commentary—or even depart from the test altogether, resulting in divergent rulings on similar facts and unpredictable creative expectations. This paper maps the shifting weights of the U.S. four-factor test. It also indicates the resulting circuit splits. According to the case law, it distills three transplantable rules. The first rule is dynamic weighting. The second is necessary limits. The third is presumed market harm. Drawing on the above situation, the following solutions are proposed for the Chinese context. Firstly, add a “transformative use clause” to Article 24 of the Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China, listing purposes or uses such as “criticism, education, parody”, and requiring “substantial differences”. Secondly, introduce the “safe harbor presumption” after Article 21 of the “Regulations on the Implementation of the Copyright Law”: when creators upload to the platform, they must submit a fair use statement based on a blockchain timestamp. Subsequently, the rights holder has 30 days to provide evidence of market damage. The mechanism converts fair use from an after-the-fact defence into pre-action certainty, making courts, platforms and creators on the same governance path.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yuxin Xie
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/03/26
TI  - The Boundaries of Fair Use in Plot-Recap Short Videos: A Doctrinal Analysis Based on Chinese Law and Comparative Law
BT  - Proceeding of 2025 8th International Conference on Humanities Education and Social Sciences (ICHESS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1060
EP  - 1070
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-551-5_115
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-551-5_115
ID  - Xie2026
ER  -