Multi-stakeholder game dynamics in copyright governance of China's short video: A stakeholder theory perspective

Globally, copyright infringement in the short video sector has become a prominent issue. In China, the short video industry has developed on a large scale, and the challenges it faces in copyright governance are representative. Grounded in stakeholder theory, this study employs a two-phase research design to examine interest-driven dynamics among multiple actors in China's short video copyright governance. Phase 1 reviews policy and regulatory documents (e.g., Management Guidelines for Online Short Video Platforms) to identify key stakeholders. Phase 2 carries out in-depth interviews with 15 stakeholders to examine how stakeholders strategically interact in practice. The findings identify four tensions. First, the government faces competing regulatory objectives and limited enforcement capacity. Second, platfozrms, driven by commercial incentives, strategically minimize self-regulation. Third, users encounter a compliance paradox and making utilitarian choices. Fourth, rights holders adopt flexible and utilitarian enforcement strategies that often intensify conflicts of interest. The results suggest that ineffective governance stems from fragmented regulation and heightened stakeholder contestation under algorithmic distribution and the attention economy. This study contributes a contextualized account of stakeholder dynamics in the Chinese digital governance environment and offers insights for constructing a more coherent copyright governance framework.