Copyright protection，cultural industry development and economic growth have important relevance. This paper firstly explains the mechanism of copyright protection to promote economic growth，and points out that copyright can directly promote economic growth as a high-level production factor，and indirectly promote economic development by promoting the intermediary variable of cultural industry development. Using the panel data and mediation effect test models of 31 provinces（autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government）from 2005 to 2016，the study found that：First，copyright protection has a direct driving effect on economic growth，and there is a significant positive correlation between the two；Second，copyright protection has an indirect role in promoting economic growth. Copyright protection promotes economic growth by promoting the development of cultural industries，and this mediating effect accounts for 40.11% of the total effect. The research in this paper shows that at this stage，promoting economic development requires not only paying attention to copyright theory research and strengthening copyright protection，but also increasing support for cultural enterprises.