In recent years, with the development of network technology and the popularization of mobile terminals, short videos have developed rapidly due to their pan-entertainment, high participation and fragmented communication model, and have gradually become the growth point of my country's digital copyright and online cultural and creative industries. Some outstanding short video producers have also enjoyed the economic benefits brought by traffic.
At the same time, some institutions and people who are keen to enjoy the benefits have directly started " content porter ". In order to evade supervision and highlight authenticity, they even directly register accounts to pretend to be the creators themselves. He is clearly "Li Gui", but he looks more "Li Kui" than Li Kui.
On April 17, the Tianxin District Court of Changsha City reported such a case.
Plaintiff Wang Rong registered the account "Wang Rong Three Baby Moms" on the Douyin platform and posted some creative short videos of her personal family life.
After the plaintiff’s video became popular, an account named “Wang Rong_Three Baby Mothers” also appeared on the “Bilibili” platform. The same account name and the same avatar contained more than 20 short videos shared by the plaintiff on the Douyin platform.
After investigation, it was found that the registrant of the account involved was Du, and the bound mcn organization was the defendant, a cultural company in Changsha. The two parties agreed through the "Account Ownership Confirmation Letter": "The rights and obligations enjoyed by the registrant belong to the company, and the company shall bear full responsibility for all actions under the account."
mcn refers to a multi-channel network (mcn), which is a business entity that cooperates with content creators or directly produces a variety of unique content, and performs business and marketing functions on the network platform that publishes content, serving Internet celebrities and self-made content. The media provides various services such as content planning and production, publicity and promotion, fan management, and contract signing agents.
Plaintiff Wang Rong sued mcn Company (a cultural company in Changsha) to the Tianxin District Court as the defendant, demanding that the defendant: immediately stop the infringement; delete all short videos on the account involved that infringe the plaintiff's copyright, and change the account name and account avatar; Compensate the plaintiff for economic losses and reasonable rights protection expenses totaling more than 200,000 yuan, and publicly apologize to the plaintiff.
After the plaintiff filed the lawsuit, the account involved posted an apology to the plaintiff, and the defendant’s legal representative sent a screenshot of the apology to the plaintiff’s attorney.
The defendant argued that the account involved was someone else’s account and was not registered by the defendant; the defendant did not misappropriate the plaintiff’s video materials for profit, and the infringement had nothing to do with the defendant, so it requested that the plaintiff’s petition be dismissed.
After trial, the Tianxin District Court of Changsha City held that:
1, the short video in this case is an audio-visual work
The name of the account that published the short video is consistent with the name of the plaintiff, and the account avatar is the same as the person who appeared in the video, the plaintiff. In the absence of contrary evidence, It is presumed that the plaintiff is the producer of the short video involved. The plaintiff has copyright in the short video works published through his own account and created with himself as the protagonist.
2. The defendant should bear infringement liability.
The defendant published the plaintiff’s short video work through the account involved in the case of the Bilibili platform operated by it without permission, which infringed the plaintiff’s right to information network dissemination of the work and should bear infringement liability.
Before the trial, the short videos in the accounts involved had been deleted, and the account names and avatars had been changed.
Accordingly, the Tianxin District Court made a first-instance judgment on July 4, 2023: ordered the defendant to compensate the plaintiff for economic losses and reasonable rights protection expenses totaling 60,000 yuan; it rejected the plaintiff’s other claims.
After the first-instance judgment of this case, neither the plaintiff nor the defendant appealed, and it is now effective.
The judge said:
Wei Liyu, the judge handling the case, said that short videos are not only an important form for ordinary people to record their lives and express themselves, but also gradually become a new medium for the economy and society, public opinion propaganda, information dissemination, and cultural construction. Short videos with originality constitute audio-visual works, while short videos that do not meet the originality requirements are video products, and both are protected by copyright law.
With the help of the digital economy, the short video industry has presented a new situation of universal creation and comprehensive sharing.The mcn organization connects short video platforms, content creators and advertisers, provides professional services to content creators, helps them achieve stable commercial gains, and promotes the innovative development of the short video industry to a certain extent. However, driven by interests, some self-media and mcn organizations have become "scissor hands" and "porters" who make profits by moving, editing, and disseminating other people's content without authorization. If this continues, it will not only directly damage the creative enthusiasm of creators, but also undermine the competitive order of the Internet industry and the innovative development of the cultural industry.
To this end, the court will further protect the intellectual property rights of the original creators and encourage innovative development by severely punishing infringements. At the same time, it also calls on relevant personnel to strengthen industry self-discipline, strengthen platform supervision, and improve technology applications.
Correspondent Guo Xingjuan Xiaoxiang Morning News reporter Zhou Lingru
