Once the Aku series of animations was launched, it was loved by the public. The reporter learned from the Beijing Internet Court today that recently, the copyright holder of the animated short film "A Fox Dream Island • My Cloud", "A Fox • Mother", and "A Fox • Xinyan" v. the mobile phone software "Dubbing Show" APP infringement case was concluded, and the judgment has now taken effect.
The plaintiff sued that there were 14 dubbing materials derived from the works involved in the defendant's "dubbing show" APP software, as well as more than 20,000 dubbing videos based on the above-mentioned dubbing materials. Users can tip dubbing videos based on dubbing materials by recharging the platform for gifts. The plaintiff filed a lawsuit on the grounds that the right of dissemination of information networks had been infringed, requesting that the defendant be ordered to stop the infringement and compensate for economic losses and reasonable expenses.
After trial, the court held that the purpose of uploading the allegedly infringing video by the network user was not "for an individual", but "to the public", which did not meet the constituent elements of fair use and constituted direct infringement. In order to enhance entertainment and interactivity, the dubbing materials uploaded by users often choose well-known film and television drama clips, and such works are usually not uploaded to the network space for free by the right holder, and it is difficult for ordinary internet users to obtain authorization. In this case, the defendant's business model objectively has the risk of inducing the upload of the infringing video, and it can subjectively foresee that there may be infringing videos in the "dubbing show". In addition, the works involved in the case themselves have a certain degree of popularity, and most of the titles of the alleged infringing materials contain the character name of "Ahu", so the defendant only needs to exercise an ordinary duty of care to find that there are obvious infringement facts in the allegedly infringing video. In addition, the defendant directly profited from the allegedly infringing video, and no matter how much profit it made, it was a business act, and it should bear a higher duty of care over the uploaded content.
Therefore, the court ruled that the defendant was "known" for the alleged infringement and should bear tort liability. Compensate the plaintiff for economic losses of 15,000 yuan and reasonable expenses of 250 yuan.
According to a survey by the Beijing Internet Court, in 2020, the Beijing Internet Court accepted a total of 28,946 copyright cases and concluded 27,925 cases, with a settlement ratio of 96%, and the number of cases has continued to be high in recent years, and infringement has shown a frequent trend. Most of the works involved in the case were photographic works, text works, and audio-visual works.
For this case, Lu Zhengxin, president of the First Comprehensive Trial Division of the Beijing Internet Court, pointed out that today, the short video industry has become a corner of the field of copyright related to the Internet, suggesting that short video service providers adopt a healthy and legitimate business model to promote the sustainable development of the industry.
(Beijing News Broadcast reporter Wang Yue)