IQIYI Received 3 Million Compensation for VIP Accounts Being Illegally Leased out

Believing that “马上玩” (mashangwan) app had leased out iQIYI VIP accounts by time period, restricted certain functions of the accounts and damaged the legal rights and interests of iQIYI, iQIYI Company sued the two operators of the app to the court, requiring them to eliminate the impact and compensate for economic losses and reasonable expenses of 3 million Yuan.

Beijing IQIYI Science & Technology Co., Ltd. alleged that it was the operator of the video website, iQIYI.com and the mobile phone app iQIYI. The paid VIP membership system established by itself is an important method for it to increase the number of users and maintain the video business; and it made it clear that the VIP membership users only have limited use of iQIYI VIP accounts, and shall not transfer, lend, rent, sell or share the accounts to others. iQIYI Company said that Hangzhou Dragon Soul Network Technology Co., Ltd. and Hangzhou Dragon Border Technology Co., Ltd. illegally leased iQIYI VIP accounts by time period through their app, violated the user agreement of iQIYI VIP account and damaged the paid membership system of iQIYI Company. At the same time, the two defendants restricted some functions of iQIYI app through technical means and impaired the user experience of iQIYI app. These two acts constitute unfair competition.

The court held that the above-mentioned acts violated the normal operation of iQIYI Company’s “paid VIP membership” system, damaged the legitimate rights and interests of iQIYI Company, constituted unfair competition. Thus, it supported all the requests by iQIYI Company in accordance with the law.

September 29, 2019

Source: YNET.com