Nandu News Reporter Zhao Qing Intern Chen Sirui Correspondent Xu Yanling With the rise of online live broadcasts, many popular e-commerce anchors’ live videos and audios have been intercepted and used to promote other people’s products. Does this behavior constitute infringement? Recently, the Guangzhou Internet Court disclosed the trial details of a related case.
Bloggers use popular anchors to live broadcast slices and sell goods
The sales volume of rice reaches hundreds of thousands
Xin Moumou is a popular live broadcast e-commerce anchor and has a high reputation in the field of live broadcast e-commerce. His name (including nickname), portrait, All sounds have high commercial value.
In December 2022, when Xin Moumou was browsing the short video app, he discovered that Long Moumou had posted a large number of live broadcast slices containing Xin Moumou's name, portrait, and voice in the short video account operated and managed by him, and included product links of the same type as the video. Or in the live broadcast slice, users are prompted to go to Long Moumou’s app display window to purchase the same product as the video.
The court found after trial that between November 2022 and December 2022, the account involved in the case published 102 videos containing Xin’s name, portrait, and voice on the short video platform. The video title was "#新x#kn95 Mask #n95 mask #..." "#新x#精品精品精品#综合综合#五常rice..." etc. The content is an edited live video clip of Xin Moumou introducing masks, rice and other commodities in the live broadcast room.
The purchase page shows that the sales volume of masks priced at 28.9 yuan to 29.9 yuan is about 20,000; the sales volume of rice priced at 29.9 yuan to 118 yuan has reached hundreds of thousands. The videos involved in the case have been deleted.
plaintiff Xin Moumou believes that Long Moumou published live broadcast slices containing Xin Moumou's name, portrait, and voice on the short video account operated and managed by him without authorization or consent, in order to attract user traffic and increase product sales. , seriously infringing on his name rights, portrait rights, and voice interests. Request a judgment to order Long Moumou to compensate for economic losses.
Defendant Long Moumou argued: First, the low playback volume of the video involved in the case and the low sales volume of the recommended products would hardly cause economic losses to Xin Moumou, and the evidence provided by Xin Moumou was not enough to prove that the account involved in the case was responsible for posting The video gained fans. Second, the economic losses and rights protection fees claimed by Xin were obviously too high, and he only agreed to return the profits earned.
The voice of the Internet celebrity anchor has economic value
The use of "carrying" sound for sales constitutes infringement
The court's effective judgment held that the use of Xin Moumou's online nickname as the title of the video to sell goods will make the public think that the sales involved in the case are The product was recommended by Xin, causing public confusion.
used live video clips containing Xin’s portrait in the links to the products involved in the case to promote similar products, which constituted the commercial use of Xin’s portrait. None of the above behaviors were approved by Xin, and constituted infringement of Xin’s portrait. Infringement of name rights and portrait rights.
The voice of a natural person is a kind of personality interest and is protected by personality rights. The voice of each individual natural person has certain particularities, and therefore the voice has a certain identity recognition function, can display personal behavior and identity to the outside world, and has certain personality attributes.
In the Internet era, sound not only carries spiritual benefits, but also contains certain economic value, and can become the object of commercial utilization.
Xin Moumou, as an e-commerce live broadcast anchor, displays products through his unique voice, smooth expressions, and full enthusiasm conveyed in his voice during the live broadcast to increase consumers' desire to buy. His voice not only carries his personal Spiritual benefits also have certain economic value because of their unique appeal.
Long used Xin's voice in the short video involved in the case without permission, and "transported" Xin's voice when recommending similar products into the video involved in the case, in order to achieve the purpose of Xin's sales. The purpose of recommending the products involved will reduce the economic benefits that Xin may obtain from licensing the use of his voice, and may also cause the public to question Xin's image, infringing on Xin's voice interests.
In summary, Long Moumou infringed on Xin Moumou's name rights, portrait rights and voice interests, and should bear civil liability in accordance with the law. The court ruled that Long Moumou should compensate Xin Moumou for economic losses of 8,000 yuan (including reasonable expenses).
The Guangzhou Internet Court ruled that the defendant Long compensated the plaintiff Xin for economic losses of 8,000 yuan (including reasonable expenses).
The above judgment has come into effect.
[Judge’s statement]
Voice is an integral element of the personality of every natural person
Malicious grafting of anchors with goods and oral broadcasts infringes on the interests of sound
Guangzhou Internet Court Judge Mai Yinghua said that personal voices are produced by the vibration of human vocal cords and are unique. sound. Everyone's voice is unique due to differences in each person's vocal cords and oral structure.
From a legal perspective, voice is an integral element of each natural person's personality, demonstrates his or her personal dignity, is an important characteristic of each person as a personality subject, and can be used to identify each natural person's identity.
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, the identity characteristics of voices have begun to receive attention. The technical ability to completely imitate, copy, and edit personal voices has brought challenges to the protection of voice interests.
The voice of a natural person is a relatively independent personality interest. Paragraph 2 of Article 1023 of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China stipulates: "The protection of the voice of a natural person shall refer to the relevant provisions on the protection of portrait rights."
Although this provision is located in Chapter 4 "Portrait Rights" of the Personality Rights Section of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China, it does not include the voice within the scope of protection of portrait rights, but refers to the applicable protection rules for portrait rights.
This article emphasizes the protection of the voice of natural persons and establishes that the voice interests of natural persons are a relatively independent personality interest and cannot be covered by specific personality rights such as portrait rights and privacy rights.
maliciously grafts anchors with goods and mouth broadcasts to infringe the interests of the voice. In this case, Xin Moumou is a famous Douyin anchor with more than 98 million fans on the Kuaishou platform and more than 3.8 million fans on the Douyin platform. He is well-known in the e-commerce field. Although
is not well-known yet, to industry audiences, Xin Moumou used his unique voice, smooth expressions, and full enthusiasm conveyed in his voice to display products during the live broadcast, which increased consumers' desire to buy. Its sound is recognizable.
's malicious grafting of anchors and oral broadcasting of goods is an infringement of unauthorized use of other people's voices. In this case, Long Moumou "transported" live broadcast slices of Xin Moumou recommending similar products to his sales page without permission, making it appear that Xin Moumou was bringing goods for sale, in order to increase product sales, The purpose of increasing product sales constitutes the unauthorized use of other people's voices, which infringes upon Xin's property interests in his voice, and he should bear corresponding civil liability.
Malicious grafting of anchors with goods and oral broadcasts does not constitute fair use of sound. Article 999 of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China stipulates the rules for the reasonable use of personality rights, that is, the name, title, portrait, personal information, etc. of civil subjects can be reasonably used for news reporting and public opinion supervision in the public interest. In terms of interpretation, it should be considered that "etc." here includes sound. Article 1020 of
stipulates a supplementary and detailed system for the fair use of portrait rights. Sounds also need to set detailed fair use rules based on their special purposes.
In this case, although the live broadcast slices of Xin Moumou’s products were legally disclosed, Long Moumou used them for profit, giving people the illusion that there was a connection between Xin Moumou and his products, which was derogatory. The advertising value of Xin's voice was not within the scope of fair use and constituted an infringement of Xin's voice interests.
