Exploring copyright solutions to online-sharing of scientific literature

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the effective mechanisms to balance the “sharing online” and the “copyright protection” of scientific literature in the digital environment, under the existing legal systems in China.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is through scrutinizing the legal provisions referring to fair‐use, statutory licensing, collective administration of copyright, and information dissemination by a library or through a computer network in current laws of the People's Republic of China, as well as through examining the successful copyright solution in China.Findings – The paper concludes that statutory licensing plus common‐use licensing is the proper and effective approach in the current situation, while collective management should be enhanced, and technological measures should be strengthened without prejudice to the public interest.Practical implications – The exploration of copyright solutions could raise law and policy debates, in order to realize scientific literat...