In 2019, Belgian artist Christian Sylvain told local media that he had discovered Chinese artist Ye Yongqing plagiarizing his work. This incident has attracted widespread attention and to some extent has had some impact on the ecology of Chinese contemporary art. After that, Sylvain filed a lawsuit, Ye Yongqing did not respond, and the Beijing Intellectual Property Court issued an announcement in the people's court that it would hold a public hearing and asked Ye Yongqing to appear in court.
Recently, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court rendered a first-instance judgment in the case of Sylvain v. Ye Yongqing for copyright infringement: Ye Yongqing immediately stopped the infringement involved in the case; Ye Yongqing issued an apology statement in the middle page of the Global Times, apologizing to the plaintiff Sylvain and eliminating the impact. Ye Yongqing paid the plaintiff Sylvain RMB5 million in damages; Plaintiff Sylvain's other claims were dismissed. If they are not satisfied with this judgment, the parties may appeal to the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court. Sylvain confirmed the victory on social media on August 31, saying, "After four years of waiting, we won the trial in China." ”
In 2019, Belgian artist Christian Silvain told local media that he had discovered Chinese artist Ye Yongqing plagiarizing his work. Christian Sylvain discovered that Ye Yongqing copied his works created in the 1980s: "Birds, nests, birdcages, red crosses, airplanes... Everything is there! Except for my name, it looks the same at all! ”
Belgian artist Christian Sylvain
Ye Yongqing painting "Bird"
Ye Yongqing, born in 1958, graduated from the painting department of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, majoring in oil painting, and was a representative figure of the "Southwest Art Group" during the "85" art wave stage. At the same time, Ye Yongqing is also a famous curator, art activist, and professor of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts. Christian Silvain, Belgian artist, was previously unknown to Chinese audiences. The former's work had been sold at auction house for 600,000 euros, while the latter had a price of 6,000 euros before the "plagiarism" incident.
With the outbreak of "Ye Yongqing 'plagiarized' Belgian artist Sylvain" incident in March 2019, it changed the lives of the two parties to some extent. Regarding the alleged plagiarism, Ye Yongqing later replied through the media: "We are trying to get in touch with this artist. He did not completely dismiss his association with Christian Sylvain, saying that he had a deep influence on it. Regarding how to explain the similarity of the styles of the two, Ye Yongqing said that he would not respond for the time being.
Left: Belgian artist Sylvain, 1990 Right: Ye Yongqing's work, 1994
Left: work by Belgian artist Sylvain, 1989 Right: work by Ye Yongqing, 1999
On March 7, 2019, the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, where Ye Yongqing once taught, issued a statement claiming to investigate his suspected plagiarism, saying that it would "promptly announce relevant information", "resolutely adopt a zero-tolerance attitude towards academic misconduct and other teacher ethics issues", and "once verified, it will not be tolerated". After that, Kawa Mei's attitude changed to "not do the investigation for the time being", and the reasons given were: 1. Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts needs to apply to a higher authority to initiate an investigation; 2. Ye Yongqing is retired, and the Academy of Fine Arts is inconvenient to manage; 3. Some of Ye Yongqing's paintings were not created in the capacity of teachers, and the Academy of Fine Arts investigation was not appropriate; 4. This suspected plagiarism incident was exposed during the previous leader's tenure, and the current leader has been transferred, and the new leader is not suitable to deal with the problems left by the old leader; 5. Ye Yongqing's household registration is in Beijing, not in Chongqing, which is not convenient for investigation. After more than half a year, after Ye Yongqing himself did not respond to the "plagiarism incident", Sylvain commissioned a Chinese lawyer to file a legal action involving the plagiarism incident. In November of the same year, Sylvain held a solo exhibition "Memory 2019 - Sylvain's Original Works Exhibition" at the North Bund Construction and Investment Bureau in Shanghai.
Subsequently, Sylvain filed a lawsuit, but Ye Yongqing never responded and avoided receiving the litigation documents sent by the court. On October 13, 2020, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court issued an announcement in the people's court that it would hold a public hearing and asked Ye Yongqing to appear in court, "At that time, if he refuses to appear in court without a valid reason, the court will be absent from the trial in accordance with the law." ”
It is worth noting that "service by announcement" is the service of litigation documents by public announcement, and the background is that the whereabouts of the person to be served are unknown, or service cannot be served by other means.
Announcement issued by the Beijing Intellectual Property Court at the People's Court
On September 9, 2021, the Civil Ruling of the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court of the People's Republic of China showed that Sylvain demanded more than 50 million yuan in compensation from Ye Yongqing. The "Facts and Reasons" section of the ruling shows that Ye Yongqing began to continuously infringe Sylvain's copyright since he came into contact with Sylvain's work in the early 1990s.
Details of the ruling are as follows:
Christian Sylvain filed a lawsuit with the court of first instance to request: 1. Order Ye Yongqing to immediately stop reproducing, distributing and exhibiting his paintings; stop copying its paintings on derivatives; destruction of unsold infringing copies; 2. Order Ye Yongqing to publish an apology statement in a conspicuous position on the homepage of Sina , Sohu, Tencent, Netease, Phoenix, The Paper and other websites, as well as in a conspicuous position outside the middle seam of national public newspapers such as People's Daily, Legal Daily, and Global Times, apologizing to him and eliminating the impact; 3. Order Ye Yongqing to compensate him 54055996 yuan (of which, the illegal profit is 42268396 yuan, the presumed illegal profit is 1,287,600 yuan, and the fixed compensation is 10,500,000 yuan); 4. Order that Ye Yongqing bear all the litigation costs, notarization preservation costs and other reasonable expenses of this case.
Facts and reasons: Christian Sylvain is a famous Belgian artist, the copyright holder of the art works involved, since the 80s of last century, began to create a series of art works including "birds, black nests, birdcages, red crosses, airplanes" and other elements, and in the form of square structure, graffiti unique artistic style as the expression, and published an album including the art works involved in the case in 1990. Ye Yongqing is the artistic director of the China Academy of Contemporary Art, the artistic director of Asian Youth Art Scene, a famous Chinese contemporary artist, curator, art critic, and former professor at the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts. Since Ye Yongqing came into contact with Christian Sylvain's works in the early 1990s, he began to continuously infringe Christian Sylvain's copyright, that is, modifying the art works involved in the case without permission, without specifying the original author and source of the art works involved in the case, but signing himself, infringing Christian Sylvain's right of authorship, modification and protection of the integrity of the work; The reproduction, exhibition and distribution of the allegedly infringing painting without permission infringed Christian Sylvain's right to reproduce, distribute, exhibit and receive remuneration. So far, according to evidence, Ye Yongqing plagiarized 87 works of Christian Sylvain over a period of more than 25 years, of which 82 allegedly infringing paintings were auctioned for auction after infringed on about 66 works of Christian Sylvain, with an auction amount of up to RMB 42268396; Two of the paintings auctioned were sold multiple times in the form of prints, and based on the number of publications, Ye Yongqing was presumed to have illegally made a profit of RMB 1,287,600; If there is no transaction record of the allegedly infringing paintings formed after infringing 21 works by Christian Sylvain, Christian Sylvain requested compensation of RMB 10,500,000 in a fixed amount, which totals RMB 54055996.
In the ruling, Ye Yongqing's appeal on the grounds of "objection to jurisdiction" was rejected by the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court and upheld the original ruling.
2019 Valuation of Ye Yongqing's work displayed on Artron
According to relevant media, on August 22, 2023, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court rendered a first-instance judgment on the copyright infringement dispute case: Ye Yongqing immediately stopped the infringement involved in the case; Ye Yongqing issued an apology statement in the middle page of the Global Times, apologizing to the plaintiff Sylvain and eliminating the impact. Ye Yongqing paid the plaintiff Sylvain RMB5 million in damages; Plaintiff Sylvain's other claims were dismissed.
Sylvain's social accounts showed news of the lawsuit
On August 31, local time, the Dutch media nieuwsblad.be announced that Christian Sylvain filed a plagiarism lawsuit in China and won the lawsuit. Sylvain confirmed the victory on social media on August 31, saying, "After four years of waiting, we won the trial in China." ”