Since it is believed that users of bilibili uploaded an animation series, which violated the copyright of Beijing Xingwei International Cultural Technology Development Co., Ltd., Shanghai Kuanyu Digital Technology Co., Ltd., the operator of bilibili, was sued to the court. Recently, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court made a final judgment on the case, rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment. According to the original judgment, Shanghai Kuanyu Company was convicted of helping the infringement by uploading the works involved in the case by users, and compensated Beijing Xingwei Company for economic losses of 200,000 yuan.
In the first instance, Beijing Xingwei Company alleged that it had obtained the exclusive authorization of the works involved in the case, including the right of information network dissemination, and the overall operation rights of animation IP, and the users of bilibili uploaded the works involved in the case to the platform. Beijing Xingwei Company believes that Shanghai Kuanyu Company has provided broadcasting services of the works involved without authorization, and sued the court on the grounds of infringing on its right of information network dissemination, requesting to order the defendant to compensate the plaintiff for economic losses of 2 million yuan and reasonable expenses 40,000 yuan.
Shanghai Kuanyu Company argued that users uploaded the works involved in the case, and it only provided network storage space services and set up convenient complaint channels. There was no need to knowing about the infringement. After the notification, necessary measures were taken in a timely manner to take offline processing of the works involved and did not edit or recommend the works involved, so it should not be considered as an infringement.
The Court of First Instance, the Beijing Internet Court, found after the trial that although the works involved showed the uploading user's information when they were broadcast, and it was verified that the users uploaded them, the works involved were animation works. Under normal circumstances, it is difficult for ordinary individual users to obtain the copyright or related authorization of such works, and the owners of the works generally will not allow free uploading and sharing of their works to video sites for the public to watch online. As a relatively well-known video website in China, the website involved in the case operated by Shanghai Kuanyu Company should pay great attention to the types of works that are likely to be infringed, such as movies, TV series, and cartoons. In this case, Shanghai Kuanyu Company did not provide evidence to prove that it had taken other reasonable measures to prevent infringement, which did not match the risk of infringement easily caused by its business model, except for setting relevant prompts in its user agreement and appeal guidelines, provide convenience for users to upload by means of classification, sorting, etc., subjectively, there is a fault, which constitutes aiding infringement.
The plaintiff and the defendant appealed against the judgment of the first instance. The Beijing Intellectual Property Court found that the original judgment facts were clear and the applicable law was correct, so the appeal was rejected, and the original judgment was upheld.
Article 1197 of the Civil Code of China clearly stipulates that if a network service provider knows or should know that a network user uses its network service to infringe others’ civil rights, and fails to take necessary measures, it shall bear joint and several liabilities with the network user. The so-called knowing or ought to know often means that the website selects, ranks, organizes, modifies, recommends the content uploaded by users. For network users to send and share content, network service providers generally do not have an obligation to review in advance. Therefore, under normal circumstances, network service providers only need to take necessary measures such as deleting and blocking the infringement listed in the complaint sent by the right holder. That is, there is no need to bear responsibility for infringement. In this regard, Article 8 of the Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Civil Disputes over Infringement of Information Network Dissemination Rights stipulates: If network service providers do not actively review the infringement of information network dissemination rights by network users, the People’s Court should not be deemed at fault on this basis. In addition, the website may also have an active verification obligation under certain circumstances, such as information posted by network users who have repeated infringements or repeated complaints record, or information that the website directly benefits from the information posted by users.
