Pirated books sold at low prices often have typos, missing chapters and pages, and use inferior ink. Shoddy pirated books not only infringe on the legitimate rights of intellectual property owners, but also affect the reading experience of learners, and may even endanger health.
A few days ago, a piracy criminal gang targeted the first set of enlightenment textbooks for countless English students in China - "New Concept English". On April 10, the Shanghai Yangpu District People's Court (hereinafter referred to as the Yangpu District People's Court) pronounced a first-instance verdict in accordance with the law in this criminal case of copyright infringement, and the two defendants were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from one year and three months to one year and nine months, and fined. In view of the fact that both are accomplices and have circumstances such as admitting guilt and accepting punishment and returning stolen goods, suspended sentences are to be applied in accordance with law.
Previously, the Yangpu District People's Court accepted a series of criminal cases involving infringement of the copyright of "New Concept English", and all of them have been concluded.
Case review
From 2022, the co-case related person Wang Moumou (already decided) ordered the anti-counterfeiting mark with the counterfeit registered trademark "PEARSON" from the co-case related person Chen Moumou (already decided), and entrusted the co-case related person Jin Moumou (handled in a separate case) to engrave the pirated "New Concept English" book CD, completing the "upstream link" of illegally manufacturing counterfeit anti-counterfeiting marks and engraving pirated CDs. Wang XX later provided the above-mentioned auxiliary materials to the co-defendants Ye XX and Yang XX A (both handled in separate cases), and successively entrusted Ye XX, defendant Yang XX B and others to print and bind.
In order to reproduce and distribute a large number of pirated copies of the "New Concept English" series of books, Ye XX, Yang XX B and others hired defendant Li XX, co-case related persons Jin X and Yang X C (both already adjudicated) and others to impose, print, bind, label, package, and ship the books in a certain printing company that they actually operated.
In order to realize the integration of production and marketing, Wang Moumou then sold the above-mentioned reproduced and distributed "New Concept English" series of books to Liang Moumou (already sentenced) and others, who were related to the same case. Liang and others, as "distributors", sold pirated books to all parts of the country through online stores.
It can be seen that the above-mentioned personnel "perform their own duties" and form a complete criminal "industrial chain".
According to the judicial audit, from November 2022 to June 2023, the co-defendants Wang XX, Jin XX, Yang XX C, and defendant Li XX printed a total of more than 300,000 unauthorized copies of the "New Concept English" series of books. Between April 2023 and June of the same year, defendant Yang Mouyi printed more than 60,000 copies of the "New Concept English" series of books without authorization. The illegal profits of Liang and others, who were related to the same case, ranged from 200,000 yuan to more than 60 yuan.
People's court adjudication
After trial, the Yangpu District People's Court held that the "New Concept English" series of books involved in the case were protected by the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China.
In this series of cases, Wang, Jin, Yang, Yang, C, and Li ganged up and conspired with others to reproduce and distribute their written works and publish books for which others enjoyed exclusive publishing rights for the purpose of profit, without the permission of the copyright owner, and there were other particularly serious circumstances, and their conduct constituted the crime of copyright infringement. For the purpose of making profits, Liang et al. sold infringing copies that they knew were infringing on the copyrights of others, and the amount of illegal gains was huge, and their conduct constituted the crime of selling infringing copies.
The people's court sentenced Wang to three years and six months imprisonment and a fine of 300,000 yuan; Jin, Yang and Liang were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from one year to one year and six months, and fines ranging from 5,000 to 1,500,000 yuan. Suspended sentences are to be applied in accordance with law in circumstances such as the return of stolen goods. Unlawful gains are to be recovered, and the infringing books, semi-finished products, covers, printing templates, CDs, etc., as well as the property used in the crime, are to be confiscated.
What the judge said
Huang Ying, a second-level judge of the Intellectual Property Division of the Yangpu District People's Court, said that as a literary work, the copyright of "New Concept English" is protected by law. Cracking down on piracy and protecting copyright is not only the protection of the rights of copyright holders, but also the only way to encourage creativity and promote innovation. On the contrary, if piracy is allowed to run rampant, it will have the consequence of "bad money driving out good money" in the market, and should be severely punished according to law.
1. Definition of the crime of copyright infringement and the crime of selling infringing copies
Among the intellectual property crimes, the two groups of crimes, "copyright infringement", "sale of infringing copies", "counterfeiting of registered trademarks" and "sale of goods with counterfeit registered trademarks" are all upstream manufacturing links and downstream sales links of infringement. According to the provisions of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Several Issues Concerning the Specific Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights, the subsequent sale of counterfeit acts shall not be convicted separately, but shall be convicted of the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks.
In this series of cases, the unauthorized reproduction of the books involved in the case and the external sale directly infringed upon the legitimate rights and interests of the relevant rights holders, and the subsequent sales were absorbed by the reproduction, which is a source crime severely cracked down on by the Criminal Law, and therefore constitutes the crime of copyright infringement.
However, the act of selling the pirated books involved in the case carried out by Liang and others is a continuation of the reproduction and distribution of Wang and others, so it does not belong to the scope of copyright infringement regulation, and its harm is far less than that of Wang and others, so it constitutes the crime of selling infringing copies.
2. The harmfulness of pirated books cannot be ignored
The harm of pirated books is actually beyond the common understanding of many ordinary people. Poor binding, typos and omissions, which in turn affect and mislead readers' reading cognition; poor texture and blurry printing can easily cause visual fatigue among teenagers in the stage of vision development; and even worse, in order to reduce costs, substandard paper, ink and glue may also be used, resulting in the pirated books printed containing heavy metal elements that exceed the standard, which are very easy to enter the body through hand and mouth contact, and seriously endanger the human health of readers.
Therefore, for the majority of consumers, it is necessary to improve their ability to identify piracy. When identifying books:
Take a look at the appearance, color, and binding. Genuine books tend to be brightly colored, smooth in appearance, and firmly bound, while pirated books are often miscolored, loosely bound, and the pages have rough edges, and are easy to fall off;
Second, touch the feel and thickness of the paper. Genuine books are made of good quality, thickness, and good feel, while pirated books are often made of thin paper and rough paper;
Three smells. The ink of genuine books exudes a fresh fragrance, while pirated books often have a pungent smell due to the use of low-quality printing ink;
Fourth, check the text typesetting and font. Genuine books have beautiful layout specifications and clear text, while pirated books are mostly scanned without proofreading, so the typesetting error rate is high, and the text is blurry and overlapping;
Five-core sales channels, pricing. Pirated books are often priced much lower than the price of genuine books, and are often sold through informal channels.
The judge reminded: Please choose the official self-operated online store of the publishing house or the regular physical bookstore to buy, resist piracy, and start with you and me!
(The original title was: "Reading Materials or "Poisons"? Production and Sale of Pirated "New Concept English", the People's Court Sentenced!", with deletions)