APP Thunder Box was Sued by iQIYI for Cracking Its VIP Privilege, Claimed for Compensation of 5 Million Yuan

 iQIYI 

Regarding the Android APP Thunder Box removes the website advertisement showed during the plays of videos automatically on the client of iQIYI, nowadays, Beijing iQIYI Technology Co., Ltd. prosecuted Beijing Liquid Network Technology Co., Ltd., operator of Thunder Box for allegedly unfair competition. The court was requested by the plaintiff to judge the defendant to stop its unfair competition and compensate a total of 5 million Yuan including economic loss and reasonable expenditures. At present, the case was accepted by Haidian District People’s Court.

According to the plaintiff’s statement, the PC client of iQIYI video player was developed to make it convenient for users to check the contents of iQIYI.com, which was protected by related copyrights in law. No matter average users or VIPs can use the client defined by the user regulation, in which the VIP users can watch videos without advertisement before played, same as the iQIYI website, while the average users should watch the advertisement to offset the cost of copyrights, network and operation.

It was found by the plaintiff that the web advertisement before or during videos provided by iQIYI could be removed automatically by the Android APP Thunder Box, operated by Beijing Liquid Network Technology Co., Ltd. which could even crack some privileges for the iQIYI VIPs to watch privileged VIP-only videos. With the help of this APP, there was no difference between average users and VIPs in the web advertisement played before or during the play of videos. Apart from this, users were encouraged by the APP to get bonus by the means of streaming withdraw and credits exchange, which were inflated on its official website and Wechat account. In thus, on the markets of Android Apps, the Thunder Box was always among the top, with a total of millions of downloads.

As a result, the defendant was sued for its actions thought harmful to the normal operation by the plaintiff, which caused great economical loss and constituted to be unfair competition.

At present, the case is still on trial.

April 22, 2019

Source: Official Web of Haidian District Court

Photo from: iqiyi.com