The video platform "Wool" is likely to face high damages for leasing its member accounts. Recently, Nandu reporter learned from the judgment document network that Hunan Nan'ao Network Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Nan'ao Company") was awarded a total of 1.03 million yuan for providing users with member account leasing services on the iQIYI platform and directly profiting from it.
Illegally build a platform to set up a leasing area
According to the judgment, the South Australian company set up a special area in its operation of the "GG Rental Number" Android terminal, the "Renren Rental Number" Android terminal, the "GG Rental Number" PC terminal (www.ggzuhao.com), and the "GG E-sports" Apple terminal (hereinafter referred to as the above four platforms hereinafter referred to as the "alleged platforms") to provide users with rental services for iQIYI member accounts for a fee, and obtained high benefits from them, which seriously undermined iQIYI's membership management system, commercial interests and business model. From this, it seized the income that should belong to iQIYI, causing huge losses to iQIYI and constituting unfair competition.
The court held that the alleged conduct of the South Australian company on the one hand caused users who intended to use membership rights to use the membership services of iQIYI website under the guise of others; on the other hand, it also prompted the lessor to register and hoard multiple member accounts by one person using different identities in order to expand the income of the rental number. It is precisely with the help of iQIYI's extensive membership user and non-member user base that the South Australian Company has taken advantage of the psychology of some users who intend to obtain improper benefits by leasing accounts, so that the accused platform has obtained a large number of users specializing in member account leasing and making high profits accordingly. Even if the final account leasing is implemented by the user, the South Australian company's establishment of the above-mentioned platform for film and television leasing provides conditions for the generally prohibited account leasing behavior in the video industry, which obviously violates the principle of good faith and basic business ethics of the video industry.
Illegal profits through intermediary fees
In addition, it can be seen from the judgment that in addition to leasing video platform accounts, South Australian companies also provide rental services for game accounts. Therefore, the court held that the platforms subject to litigation all had "rental numbers" as their main business, and it was impossible for the South Australian Company not to be aware of iQIYI's membership services and the restrictions and rules set for member accounts, that is, member accounts could not be rented, borrowed, transferred, shared or sold, but it still provided a platform for member account leasing. This situation shows that the South Australian company is clearly at subjective fault.
More importantly, South Australian companies directly profit from the act of renting out their accounts. According to the notarial deed involved in the case, the South Australian company can directly obtain economic benefits from account leasing transactions by charging 15%-20% of the handling fee (the minimum fee is 0.3 yuan) and 2% of the Alipay withdrawal fee (minimum 2 yuan per transaction) in each order; at the same time, the South Australian company also collects service fees from the lessor through merchants, wrong compensation, shelves and other services, and expands the transaction scale and attracts user traffic through the above services, and further obtains benefits through traffic realization. Therefore, through the iQIYI member account rental service, the South Australian company has brought direct income or traffic revenue to itself, and has achieved a competitive advantage that it does not enjoy.
The e-commerce platform knows that the "sell number" needs to be removed from the shelves
In fact, the behavior of leasing member accounts is not uncommon in daily life, in addition to the above-mentioned specially built rental platform, Nandu reporters in the mainstream e-commerce platform with "iQiyi / Tencent Video / Youku + VIP" and other keywords to search found that many merchants are selling day, month or year as a unit of membership accounts, some can directly use their own mobile phone number for recharge, some need to use the specific account provided by the merchant to log in. The price of 7-day members is mostly in single digits, and one-month members are 10-15 yuan. In addition, there are even apps that can universalize the membership of various video platforms, and after purchase, they can not only achieve permanent membership but also include advanced on-demand paid content, and the price is only single digits.
"Selling numbers" on e-commerce platforms.
However, Zhao Zhanzhang, deputy director of Beijing Yunjia Law Firm and a special researcher of the Intellectual Property Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, told Nandu reporters that there is a certain difference between the situation of leasing accounts in the case and the situation of merchants selling accounts on e-commerce platforms. "In this case, the defendant built a platform and set up a special film and television leasing area, which provided conditions for the account leasing behavior generally prohibited by the video industry, and also improved the lessor's transaction opportunity to realize the account leasing through services such as merchants, wrong compensation, and shelves, so the court found that the defendant was subjectively at fault."
In response to the low-priced sale of member accounts on the more commonly contacted e-commerce platform, he said that if the seller publishes the member account rental information completely on other e-commerce platforms, the e-commerce platform does not set up a special area, nor does it edit, recommend or advertise the rental information, it is difficult to determine the specific subjective fault of the e-commerce platform for the seller's behavior. But this does not mean that the e-commerce platform that has such a transaction exists is "all right", Zhao zhanzhan added, if the e-commerce platform knows that such transactions of the merchant need to be removed from the shelves, otherwise the platform will constitute "knowing" for the seller's behavior.
The cost of infringement is low, and the rental number "gray production" is repeatedly prohibited
The "gray production" of video account leasing has been repeatedly banned, and this is not the first time that iQiyi has become a "victim". Previously, the "Play Now" APP was sentenced to compensate iQIYI for a total of 3 million yuan for the time-sharing rental of iQIYI's VIP account. Youku also sued the sharing VIP platform Mimao and claimed 1.9 million yuan, saying that this model of the platform would undermine its membership system.
In this case, the judgment clearly mentioned the direct damage of such a rental account model to the economic interests of the video platform. The alleged behavior of the South Australian company will cause ordinary users to obtain free videos without having to pay membership fees to iQIYI or at the expense of watching advertisements, but can obtain the member video resources provided by iQIYI through leasing accounts, which not only destroys the operation mode and profit mode of iQIYI's video website, but also substantially affects iQIYI's transaction opportunities, membership income and user traffic, that is, directly damages the operating income generated by iQIYI's video services.
In the long run, the alleged behavior will also gradually reduce the vitality of market competition, undermine the order and mechanism of competition, hinder the normal and orderly development of the online video industry, and ultimately cause losses to the well-being of consumers.
In Zhao Zhanzhan's view, the main reasons for the repeated prohibition of such acts cover several aspects: first, the law does not directly and clearly stipulate this, and the relevant judicial precedents are relatively small; second, the market demand for account buying or leasing is very large, and the commercial benefits of providing intermediary services for this purpose are huge; finally, even in some cases, even if the court has ruled that the platform provides intermediary services for the sale or lease of accounts constitutes unfair competition, the amount of judgment damages is not very high, and the cost of infringement is relatively low compared to the benefits obtained by the platform.
Written by: Nandu reporter Xu Bingqian