著作權法第1條：「為保障著作人著作權益，調和社會公共利益，促進國家文化發展，特制定本法。」說明了著作權法的目的同時兼具保障著作權人權利、公共利益以及促進國家文化發展。為了達成著作權的目的，明文刑事責任於規範中。刑事責任置於著作權領域是否妥適，至今為止不僅學說上，在社會上均引起廣泛的討論，特別是我國這十年來發生了許多相關爭議性的事件。這樣的問題不禁使人反覆思考，著作權的保護範圍到底為何？以刑罰保護著作權的妥適性？ 本文從著作權的基礎思維出發，探討著作權法中公共領域、利用人權利與合理使用概念，進而分析著作權背後所代表的法律意義。著作權是否得以做為刑法上所保護的利益，必須端視著作權的本質為何。本文嘗試討論著作權作為財產權，從刑法的角度，以「家族相似性( Familienähnli-chkeit)」的概念就著作權本身資訊的特性下，討論著作財產權法益的存在與否。 美國法作為世界著作權法的領導先驅，深深地影響我國學說見解與實務操作。透過比較美國著作權法之規範，省思我國社會現況是否有必要制定如此嚴格之刑罰規定；從經濟分析的角度思考，對於著作權刑罰威嚇作用的成果效益效果是有限度的，然而著作權政策以及刑法的長期效益所帶來的成本卻是很高的。著作權刑罰所需的成本高於其所獲得的效益，以致於立法者將著作權侵權行為視為犯罪並無法有效率地保護著作權人或公眾長期的著作權利益。 本文設計一賽局，分析在侵害人選擇侵害著作權的策略時，即使政府選擇執行刑事處罰反而比起不執行所付出的成本為高，在這樣的情形下，政府不執行刑事處罰的策略才是最佳策略的選擇。法律使用刑罰保護大家共同認可、接受的利益，前提是人類的社會共同生活秩序在我們的社會共識必須認同這樣的規範，透過觀察實務案例與統計分析，可以發現我國實務在著作權重製認定或是在刑度裁量上都出現很大之問題，同時也出現許多著作權人濫用刑事程序之情形。 綜上所述，我國的著作權刑事立法確實有值得探討的空間，需要再加以審慎考量。本文認為，應該廢除著作權刑事處罰的刑罰規定，讓著作權刑事處罰行為回歸民事的侵權行為，由著作權人向侵權行為人請求損害賠償。借鏡專利法廢除刑罰規定的經驗，讓著作權回歸其本質，以民事損害賠償填補著作權人之損失即為已足。 / Copyright Law Article 1: ” This Act is specifically enacted for the purposes of protecting the rights and interests of authors with respect to their works, balancing different interests for the common good of society, and promoting the development of national culture. Matters not provided for herein shall be governed by the provisions of other acts.” It illustrates that the purpose of copyright law combines both the right of copyright owner and public interest. In order to achieve this goal, criminal liability is included. However, there are controversies of criminal liability in copyright law, especially lots of copyright social events happened in the past few years. This leads to questions: Is it right to protect copyright through criminal punishment? In this thesis, I intend to use the concept of Familienähnli-chkeit (Legal Interest) to analyze legal interest of copyright. Economic analysis of law applies the economic cost theory to the analysis of copyright rules and utility. Game theory analysis of law seeks primarily to explain how people behave in response to legal rules and institutions. The prior discussion identifies the protection of copyright through criminal punishment is relatively useless. On the other hand, as a leading country of copyright legislation and academic discussion, Copyright Law comparison between United States and Taiwan is helpful for rethinking Taiwan Copyright Law. Last but not the least, the observation of judicial practice matters is also important. I researched the related cases and made statistics in order to reveal the real aspect of Taiwan judicial practice. Based on the above, this thesis identifies the problems of criminal punishment of Taiwan Copyright Law. An overview of copyright criminal norm is given for this purpose. I then reflect on Taiwan’s current copyright criminal punishment, with particular emphasis on preeminent aspects of the elements which mentioned above that may be used as references for the future development of Taiwan Copyright Law.