According to Reuters, on Tuesday local time, Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify sued Shopline, a subsidiary of Chinese technology company JOYY, for copyright infringement in the Federal Court of New York, accusing it of illegally copying Shopify's software templates to build its own e-commerce platform.
Founded in 2013, Shopline, an e-commerce platform service provider, mainly provides small and medium-sized merchants with a variety of customized templates, enabling merchants to build online stores quickly and efficiently, and supporting multiple languages and currencies. Shopline was acquired by Huanju Group in 2022 and became its overseas e-commerce website and trading platform, which is an important part of the cross-border e-commerce business.
Shopify says that in 2023, Shopline launched a lightweight theme template for developers, "Seed", which can be used to decorate storefronts, and this template almost completely replicates the source code of Shopify's "Dawn" storefront template, which is almost identical in terms of file structure, file name, feature name, and line of code.
Part of the evidence provided by Shopify
According to court documents, Shopify argued that the Seed software's folder layout and content were almost identical to the Dawn software, and even included the name "Shopify" in the code, indicating that Shopline's code was copied directly from the Dawn software.
Shopify alleges that Shopline committed a willful act of infringement by stealing Shopify's technology to gain an unfair competitive advantage. Shopify asked the court to issue an injunction to stop Shopline's infringement while seeking damages. In addition, Shopify also believes that merchants who use the "Seed" template are also suspected of infringing their copyrights, and requires these merchants to compensate for the corresponding losses.
A Shopify spokesperson said in a statement: "We have taken strong legal action against Shopline to protect our intellectual property and the integrity of Shopify's products. ”
Source: Reuters
编辑：Sharon