On the evening of March 30, Douban officials posted a number of pictures on Weibo, and Beijing Douwang Technology Co., Ltd. (Douban) sued Beijing Weimeng Chuangke Network Technology Co., Ltd. (Weibo) for unfair competition.
According to the civil complaint officially released by Douban, Douban sued Weibo for long-term connivance with platform users (a large number of them relying on traffic to profit from marketing users) to illegally move content and use Douban's trademarks without authorization.
Douban said that Sina Weibo allowed its Weibo users to "carry" Douban content data for a long time and in large quantities, and the behavior of Weibo users infringed on Douban's content and data rights and interests, as well as the copyright of Douban users and related rights holders. Douban said it had sent an official letter to Sina Weibo about the "handling" of content by Weibo users, but Sina Weibo has not yet dealt with it.
Douban also mentioned that some Weibo users used the trademarks of "Douban Douban", "Douban" and "Douban Group" without authorization, infringing the trademark rights enjoyed by Douban. Douban believes that Sina Weibo, as a network service platform, still does not take measures such as deletion after receiving the notice, which expands Douban's losses.
Douban asked Weibo: 1. Immediately stop the infringement, including but not limited to deleting the infringing link and stopping the recruitment of the "Super Talk Nova Program". 2. Public apologies. 3. Compensate the plaintiff (Douban) for RMB 1. 4. The defendant (Weibo) bears all the litigation costs of the case. In addition, Douban officials have published some evidence of the so-called "unchanged copying of the name of the Douban group".
In response to the "Douban unfair competition lawsuit against Weibo", late at night on March 30, Weibo Company issued a statement through the external speaking account @Weibo Spokesperson, saying that the supernova plan carried out by Weibo Super Talk is not aimed at a certain platform, belongs to the normal business operation category, and there is no unfair competition or plagiarism at all. On the contrary, it has issued several announcements before, strictly prohibiting users and MCN agencies from carrying undesirable content such as false confrontations from a certain platform.
Weibo said in a statement that since the birth of the Internet, openness and freedom have been its background. Good birds choose trees to live, and users migrate and flow between different platforms based on interests and wishes is a normal and legitimate phenomenon, and it is not worth hyping up or distorting into unfair competition.
Image source: Douban, Weibo