Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Xie Silin
Image source: pixabay
html On the afternoon of March 19, topics related to "Jay Chou lost the first trial against NetEase" topped the Weibo hot search.However, contrary to outside expectations, the relevant case is not a dispute over music copyright between Jay Chou and NetEase, but a promotional event for NetEase's MMO game "Tianxia 3".
In July 2022, Jay Chou released his new album "The Greatest Work" again after 6 years, which quickly attracted the attention of the entire Internet. At that time, "Tianxia 3"'s new expansion pack "Bei Ming Danger Road" was about to be launched. In order to give back to the game players, "Tianxia 3" purchased the "The Greatest Work" digital album and tickets to Jay Chou's concert for Weibo reposting and lottery. .
"The World 3" This move immediately aroused dissatisfaction from Jay Chou. On July 11 of the same year, Jieweier Music Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jieweier"), the owner of Jay Chou's music copyright, announced that it would take legal measures against "Tian Xia 3" for privately gifting Jay Chou's new album and concert tickets.
After the announcement, "Tianxia 3" immediately deleted the related event Weibo and issued a clarification announcement the next day, explaining that the lottery was only for daily feedback to old users, and the company did not use Jay Chou's name in the game. The musical works and activities indeed have nothing to do with Jay Chou and Jewel.
However, the dispute between the two parties did not end.
Jewell immediately sued the three main companies related to "Tianxia 3" on the grounds of unfair competition, and proposed that NetEase implemented the above lottery without establishing any cooperative relationship, which could easily make the relevant public mistakenly believe that it was involved in the case. There is a specific relationship between the game and the plaintiff such as authorization, endorsement, recommendation, etc., and they improperly take advantage of Jay Chou's extremely high popularity, the extremely high popularity of his new album, and the wide spread of his music works to promote and attract traffic to the game involved, thereby increasing the number of game users. Achieving profits constitutes unfair competition.
At the same time, Jewell required the defendant to stop unfair competition, publish a statement, eliminate the impact, compensate for losses and reasonable rights protection expenses of 2.05 million yuan.
"The unfair business practices cited by Jewell are simply taking advantage of celebrity traffic and free riding. Because Jay Chou has a very high reputation, the plaintiff believes that NetEase is using Jay Chou's popularity to attract business for itself." Shanghai Shen Xia Hailong, a lawyer at Lun Law Firm, explained to Times Finance.
As a top figure in the Chinese music circle, the commercial value of Jay Chou and his golden songs cannot be underestimated.
According to a previous report by China Business News, Alibaba and Tencent Music once competed for the copyright of Jay Chou's songs. In the end, Tencent Music purchased the three-year exclusive copyright of all Jay Chou's songs for a price of up to 570 million yuan.
Even when Tencent Music licenses Jay Chou's music works for the second time, the required copyright fees are still high. Documents previously disclosed by the China Judgment Document Network show that from April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2018, Tencent Music authorized Jay Chou's songs to NetEase Cloud Music for use. On an annual basis, the copyright fees were 8.7 million yuan/year. , 8.6429 million yuan/year and 18.1841 million yuan/year.
However, just reposting the lottery for Jay Chou's album and concert tickets on Weibo seems difficult to be considered as improper misappropriation of Jay Chou and the commercial value of his name. Perhaps precisely for this reason, Jewell’s claim was not supported by the court of first instance.
According to relevant people close to NetEase's "Tianxia 3", the first instance of the case ruled in favor of the defendant "Tianxia 3". The court rejected all litigation claims including Jewell's 2.05 million yuan claim, and determined that the mode of forwarding the lottery was WeChat. Common publicity methods in gambling do not constitute unfair competition. In the lottery Weibo, the use of Jay Chou's name in "Tian Xia 3" is also considered fair use, indicating that the prize is Jay Chou's new album.
"The relevant public has a certain degree of judgment and can distinguish these activities as interactions between businesses and consumers. It is difficult for the public to associate Jay Chou as a spokesperson. It does not violate business ethics and NetEase does not constitute unfair competition." The court of first instance held that.
Jewell is dissatisfied with this judgment and has appealed.According to information from Tianyancha, the second instance case of Jewel v. the three main companies related to "Tianxia 3" will be heard on March 26 and will be heard by the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court.
In this regard, Xia Hailong believes that the first-instance judgment has clearly pointed out that NetEase did use Jay Chou's album for marketing activities, but the use of Jay Chou's name in the copywriting was a descriptive use, just to explain the objective situation of the lottery. And users will not mistakenly believe that the relevant activities are related to Jay Chou himself, and there will be no confusion.
"From this perspective, it is very likely that the second instance of the case will continue to uphold the first instance verdict." He said.
